Replication Data for: The Power and Peril of Nudging Non-Compliant Firms: A Field Experiment on Tax Compliance

We explore whether nudges increase payment rate of tax debts by non-compliant firms. Through a partnership with the Department of Revenue of the State of Espírito Santo (Brazil), we include nudges related to reciprocity, social norms, and salience in letters sent to non-tax-compliant firms. Results show that reciprocity and salience have no effect on the likelihood of payment. However, the two social norms nudges have important economic effects. A majority norm message increases the chance payment in up to 5.8 percentage points (p.p.), a 35% increase over the base rate of the no message control. Interestingly, a minority norm message leads to a sharp decrease of up to 7.9 p.p. in the chance of payment. We add novel evidence to two important strands of the literature which are underexplored due to lack of data: firm tax compliance and firm behavior to nudges. Our results highlight the importance of understanding the context in which the taxpayers operate to design effective strategies to increase tax compliance.