Journal of Public Economics · 2024 · Clemens Fuest、Klaus Gründler、Niklas Potrafke、Fabian Ruthardt
中文摘要
近期研究发现，公共支出存在明显的选举周期，但税收周期的证据较为匮乏，这反映出缺少可进行跨国比较的税收改革衡量指标。我们利用国际货币基金组织提供的定性数据（Amaglobeli et al., 2018），编制了涵盖整个税收体系的综合税收改革指标，覆盖1960—2014年间的22个国家，包括六类税种的税率和税基改革。通过考察税收改革与选举时点之间的关系，我们发现，结果与政治家将税收改革推迟至选举后时期实施的行为相一致。这些结果在增税改革中最为明显，对税率的影响强于对税基的影响，并且由格外引人关注的税种（个人所得税和增值税）所驱动。
Abstract
Recent research has found distinct electoral cycles in public spending, but the evidence for cycles in taxation is scarce, reflecting a lack of cross-nationally comparable measures of tax reforms. We use qualitative data provided by the IMF (Amaglobeli et al., 2018) to compile comprehensive tax reform indicators that cover the entire tax system for 22 countries between 1960–2014, including reforms of tax rates and bases for six tax types. Relating tax reforms to the timing of elections, we find results that are consistent with politicians postponing tax reforms to periods after elections. The results are most pronounced for tax increases, are stronger for tax rates than bases, and are driven by particularly salient tax types (personal income taxes and the VAT).