A self-interest analysis of justice and tax compliance: How distributive justice moderates the effect of outcome favorability Peter Verboon * , Marius van Dijke Department of Psychology, Open University, P.O. 2960, 6401 DL, Heerlen, The Netherlands Received 7 September 2006; received in revised form 25 September 2007; accepted 25 September 2007 Available online 1 October 2007 Abstract Compliance with tax authorities has been studied mainly in the fields of economics and psychol- ogy. The focus has respectively been on self-interest motives and justice concerns in tax compliance. We argue that both concerns are less divergent than is often thought. Specifically, we studied the moderating role of distributive justice on the relationship between outcome favorability and tax compliance in two cross-sectional surveys. It is generally believed that favorable outcomes increase compliance because they decrease what can be gained from non-compliance. The present research addresses the role of distributive justice in this process. Since people believe that distributive fairness guarantees their long-term outcomes, favorable present outcomes now imply favorable future out- comes and unfavorable present outcomes now imply unfavorable future outcomes. Thus, we expected fair outcomes to result in a strong relationship between outcome favorability and compli- ance. On the basis that unfair outcomes are believed to result from chance, outcome favorability should have a weaker relationship with compliance when outcomes are unfair. Even when control- ling for other variables, this prediction was supported by both studies. Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: H26 PsycINFO classification: 2900 Keywords: Tax compliance; Distributive justice; Outcome favorability; Self-interest 0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2007.09.004 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 10 2771480. E-mail address: Peter.Verboon@ou.nl (P. Verboon). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Economic Psychology 28 (2007) 704–727 www.elsevier.com/locate/joep