废钞与经济活动的低报：来自房地产的证据

Journal of Development Economics · 2026 · [{"name": "Santosh Anagol", "affiliation": ["University of Pennsylvania"]}, {"name": "Vimal Balasubramaniam", "affiliation": ["Queen Mary University of London", "Centre for Economic Policy Research"]}, {"name": "Tarun Ramadorai", "affiliation": ["Centre for Economic Policy Research", "Imperial College London"]}, {"name": "Antoine Uettwiller", "affiliation": ["Queen Mary University of London"]}]

中文摘要

印度2016年废钞政策的一个主要目标, 是通过减少少报经济活动中的现金使用来遏制逃税。我们检验该政策是否减少了房地产交易中的少报行为——这一市场长期被怀疑存在广泛的现金使用与逃税。我们发现总体少报没有变化, 但在占交易量30%的个人买卖双方之间的交易中, 相对于开发商作为卖方的70%交易, 少报出现了适度下降。我们还发现证据表明, 在规模较小的开发商以及废钞前少报更为普遍的地区, 少报有所下降。我们基于印度一座主要城市的结果, 既凸显了基于现金的执法的局限性, 也揭示了废钞式政策的异质性效应。

Abstract

A major goal of India’s 2016 demonetization was to curb tax evasion by reducing the use of cash in under-reported economic activity. We test whether the policy reduced under-reporting in real estate transactions — a market long suspected of widespread cash use and evasion. We find no change in aggregate under-reporting, but moderate declines among the 30% of transactions between individual buyers and sellers, relative to the 70% where developers are sellers. We also find evidence of under-reporting declines amongst smaller developers and regions where under-reporting was more common pre-demonetization. Our results, from a major Indian city, highlight both the limits of cash-based enforcement and the heterogeneous effects of demonetization style policies.