Tax evasion in transition: Outcome of an institutional clash? Testing Feige's conjecture in Albania

A field survey of households was conducted in Tirana, Albania in 2000. A response rate of 89.3% yielded 1.340 valid questionnaires, allowing me to test Feige's (In: Nelson, J.M., Tilley, C., Walker, L. (Eds.), Transforming Post-communist Political Economics. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, p. 21) conjecture that more tax evasion will be observed, when formal and informal institutions clash. Respondents’ attitudes towards formal and informal institutions were obtained by applying factor analysis to their responses to a series of attitudinal questions. The theoretical importance of the interaction between formal and informal institutions in determining tax evasion finds empirical support in the data.