Tax evasion, testosterone and personality traits

Abstract

High testosterone levels in men may inhibit tax evasion. From a laboratory experiment with 121 young men, we present suggestive evidence that putative markers of prenatal and pubertal testosterone exposure and some personality traits predict the decision of evading taxes. We also observe a sizable and negative, although weakly signi cant (at 10%), treatment e ect, controlling for individual characteristics, testosterone exposure markers, medication and drugs use. Reinforced by permutation tests for the treatment variable, a lower prevalence of tax evasion in the treated group is in line with recent results that suggest testosterone may increase prosocial or less sel sh behavior.