废钞令与经济活动少报：来自房地产的证据

中文摘要

印度2016年废钞令的一个主要目标，是通过减少现金在少报经济活动中的使用来遏制逃税。我们检验该政策是否减少了房地产交易中的少报行为——这一市场长期以来被怀疑存在广泛的现金使用和逃税现象。我们发现总体少报程度没有变化，但在占交易量30%的个人买卖双方之间的交易中，相对于占70%的开发商作为卖方的交易，少报出现了温和下降。我们还发现证据表明，在规模较小的开发商中，以及废钞令实施前少报更为普遍的地区，少报程度有所下降。我们基于印度一座主要城市得出的结果，既凸显了以现金为基础的执法措施的局限性，也揭示了废钞令类政策的异质性效应。

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.