Glass Barriers _Note:_ The figure displays coefficients from an OLS regression. Country and checkpoints are controlled for. Whiskers represent 95% confidence intervals.

Higher taxes for female SSCBTers and a higher probability of being controlled would be justified if, for some reason (including a low-trust equilibrium between border authorities and female crossers), women were more likely to bend the rules. SSCBTers indeed report being sometimes involved in illegal practices. These practices include hiding high-value goods under low-value ones, taking a small by-road to avoid officers and transporting brand clothes and shoes, exports that are carefully monitored in Cambodia to protect the garment industry.

The IDI data contain information on whether in the 12 months preceding the survey the respondent had ever “omitted to declare goods or underreported their quantity or value on purpose in order to avoid taxes.”<sup>31</sup> We find that about one-tenth of SSCBTers admit to deliberate tax evasion in the past year but stakeholder interviews revealed that SSCBTers are reluctant to confess tax evasion. Their answers on this topic are therefore likely to be biased downwards. We decided to include in the IDI survey additional questions to take into account SSCBTers’ reticence and adjust estimates of the incidence of tax evasion accordingly. The methodology implemented relies on Kraay & Murrell (2013). SSCBTers’ direct answers to the binary question about tax evasion in the past 12 months are contrasted with the reticence-adjusted estimates. We leave the presentation of the methodology and results to Appendix B. The main finding is that although rates of tax evasion are sensibly higher when taking reticence into account, they are neither significantly nor qualitatively different between men and women. This suggests that female SSCBTers’ higher tax burden is not clearly due to female traders and brokers indulging more than men in illegal practices.

Third, women suffer from a wedge in the tax schedule applied to them at the border. Tax exemption or preferential treatment is granted by the law for local cross-border trade. For instance, in Cambodia “consumption within the border area” and “personal consumption” by travelers are both subsumed under the “imported non-commercial goods” category (Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Kingdom of Cambodia 2005). Such rules are enforced by secondary customs checkpoints or patrols along major roads. In Lao PDR, a physical checkpoint is visible 15 km off Vangtao on the road to Pakse; a similar structure stands 8 km before Dansavanh. Subsequently, a large share of crossings is reported to imply no interaction with or taxation from border authorities, and women and men appear equally likely not to pay any taxes.

Gender differences nevertheless arise when one takes activity (trader vs. broker) into account. As can be seen from the regression coefficients displayed in Figure 19, female _brokers_ enjoy a preferential treatment relative to their male counterparts, whereas the effect of being a woman is statistically indistinguishable from 0 for traders. This may be evidence of positive discrimination in favor of female brokers and negative discrimination against women when they trade on their own accounts. Although such a nonlinear tax schedule seems to protect more vulnerable female SSCBTers, it may create a tax wedge that deters female brokers from engaging in trading and women in general from entering SSCBT.<sup>32</sup>

> 31 Some goods, e.g., alcohol, are subject to declaration in some checkpoints and simply forbidden to cross the border in others. A common practice for traders who want to minimize taxes is to hide high-duty goods under low-duty ones. This is particularly effective under the “visual assessment” method, which remains usually superficial.

> 32 The gender gap in tax exemption is not due to differences in shipment values, since Figure 19 controls for that.

Cambodia and Lao PDR 19