We study the New York City taxi market to examine whether an excise tax hike on cigarettes corresponds to smoker taxi drivers more frequently cheating their customers. Increased cheating could be motivated by both financial pressures and as a reaction to unfair treatment (as surveyed smokers view cigarette tax hikes as quite unfair). We examine this question using detailed ride-level data where we can identify a rare but fraudulent overcharging technique (cheating) and a subsample of taxi drivers who smoke (affected taxpayers, identified via tickets for smoking in a cab). In difference-in-differences regressions we find that following a cigarette tax hike, taxi drivers who smoke are approximately 1.5 times more likely to cheat customers than other drivers. Our findings are strongest in the subsample of smokers with consistently low earnings.

我们研究了纽约市的出租车市场，以检验香烟消费税上调是否与吸烟的出租车司机更频繁地欺骗他们的顾客相对应。财务压力和对不公平待遇的反应可能会促使作弊增加（因为接受调查的吸烟者认为提高卷烟税非常不公平）。我们使用详细的乘车水平数据来研究这个问题，我们可以在其中识别一种罕见但具有欺诈性的过度收费技术（作弊）和吸烟的出租车司机的子样本（受影响的纳税人，通过在出租车内吸烟的票来识别）。在差异差异回归中，我们发现在提高香烟税后，吸烟的出租车司机欺骗顾客的可能性大约是其他司机的 1.5 倍。我们的研究结果在收入持续偏低的吸烟者子样本中最为明显。