Taxing Higher Incomes in Haiti

How can the wealthy be lured to contribute to pay more tax? Where states have weak capacities and the costs of compliance are high, coercion is not an effective option to tax the affluent. But the wealthy should be convinced to voluntarily accept progressive taxation. Haiti is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world, yet there is an absence of public opinion research on tax preferences and progressivity in this context. The proposed project aims to contribute to the literature, by designing and analyzing a series of experiments embedded in an online survey of 2000 Haitian citizens. To tap into the taxation preferences of the wealthy, heterogeneous treatment effects for those living in affluent households versus average individuals will be analyzed.