Hansen, Lauren2019-07-152019-07-152019-04http://hdl.handle.net/11416/456Honors thesis Spring 2019This paper considers individual and social factors influencing an individual’s willingness to condone cheating on taxes by examining country- and individual-level data. Corruption appears to have a positive effect on tax evasion, which hinders a country’s state administrative capacity by restricting available resources. Furthermore, an individual’s prosocial attributes tend to encourage their opposition to cheating on taxes. By bringing these two outcomes together, the resulting implication is that by reducing a country’s corruption and increasing community-focused characteristics in individuals, the probability of tax evasion may decrease, leading to improved state capacity and social capital.Tax evasionCorruptionSocial statusThesis