American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
How Is Tax Policy Conducted over the Business Cycle?
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 7,
no. 3, August 2015
(pp. 327–70)
Abstract
It is well known by now that government spending has typically been procyclical in developing economies but acyclical or countercyclical in industrial countries. Little, if any, is known, however, about the cyclical behavior of tax rates (as opposed to tax revenues, which are endogenous to the business cycle and, hence, cannot shed light on the cyclicality of tax policy). We build a novel dataset on tax rates for 62 countries for the period 1960-2013 that comprises corporate income, personal income, and value-added tax rates. We find that tax policy is acyclical in industrial countries but mostly pro cyclical in developing countries. (JEL E32, E64, H24, H25, O11, O23)Citation
Vegh, Carlos A., and Guillermo Vuletin. 2015. "How Is Tax Policy Conducted over the Business Cycle?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7 (3): 327–70. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20120218Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- E64 Incomes Policy; Price Policy
- H24 Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies; includes inheritance and gift taxes
- H25 Business Taxes and Subsidies including sales and value-added (VAT)
- O11 Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- O23 Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development