Public policies and tax evasion: evidence from SAARC countries

In compliance with the socioeconomic theory, the study has strived to investigate the impact of economic and non-economic public policies on tax evasion using panel data of 7 SAARC countries covering the period from 1998 to 2015. The study has applied the ordinary least square with fixed effect and random effect models to analyze the data assembled. The result of the study implies that the higher the degree of economic freedoms, the lower the tax evasion. More specifically, the government policies about property rights, monetary freedom, fiscal freedom and investment freedom have a negative influence on taxpayers' choices of tax evasion while financial freedom result shows a positive effect on tax evasion. Additionally, there is a negative impact of public…