Using deep Q-learning to understand the tax evasion behavior of risk-averse firms

作者:

Highlights:

• A Markov-based decision support model with non-linear reward function.

• Complexity is tackled computationally via Deep Q-learning.

• We evaluate various tax policy scenarios including occasional tax amnesties.

• We compute a firm’s “average” risk-aversion coefficient from empirical data.

• Tax-amnesties have a negative long-term impact on tax revenues.

摘要

•A Markov-based decision support model with non-linear reward function.•Complexity is tackled computationally via Deep Q-learning.•We evaluate various tax policy scenarios including occasional tax amnesties.•We compute a firm’s “average” risk-aversion coefficient from empirical data.•Tax-amnesties have a negative long-term impact on tax revenues.

论文关键词:Markov decision processes,Tax evasion,Q-learning,Deep learning

论文评审过程:Received 27 October 2017, Revised 9 January 2018, Accepted 25 January 2018, Available online 1 February 2018, Version of Record 27 February 2018.

论文官网地址:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2018.01.039