TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Forestra, Alessandra
AU  - Megalokonomou, Rigissa
AU  - Vlassopoulos, Michael
        TI  - Crisis Narratives and Judicial Enforcement: Evidence from the Greek Fiscal Crisis
        PY  - 2026/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18489
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp18489
        AB  - This paper investigates whether crisis narratives affect how the judiciary handles tax evasion. We study this question in the context of the Greek debt crisis, in which tax evasion was publicly blamed for the fiscal collapse, and judges themselves experienced substantial salary cuts as part of the resulting austerity programme. Using a novel dataset compiled from Greek Supreme Court rulings between 2006 and 2014, we compare tax evasion appeals with appeals in other serious crimes not directly related to the fiscal crisis, such as homicide and rape, in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that the probability that the Supreme Court rejects tax-evasion appeals increases by about 25 percentage points relative to these control offences after January 2010—about a 43% increase relative to the pre-crisis baseline. Effects are larger in months with greater public attention to tax evasion, as measured by Google Trends, suggesting a role for salience. Our findings suggest that crisis narratives, par- ticularly when coupled with personal economic shocks to judges, can influence the judicial treatment of tax offences.
        KW  - economic narratives
KW  - judicial decision-making
KW  - tax evasion
KW  - financial crisis
KW  - legal institutions
KW  - difference- in-differences
        ER  -