IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scandj/v122y2020i2p824-850.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of VAT Reform on Swedish Restaurants: A Synthetic Control Group Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Björn Falkenhall
  • Jonas Månsson
  • Sofia Tano

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the impact on firms of the value added tax (VAT) reform that took effect in Sweden on 1 January 2012 for restaurant and catering services. Unlike previous research, we use a synthetic control group approach to construct our counterfactual. Our analysis shows that the VAT reduction had a positive effect on turnover, total wages, employment, profit margins, and net entry of firms. The effects of the reform tend to decrease over time. In all, the results point to an overall better performance for the restaurant industry compared with what it would have been in absence of the reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Björn Falkenhall & Jonas Månsson & Sofia Tano, 2020. "Impact of VAT Reform on Swedish Restaurants: A Synthetic Control Group Approach," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(2), pages 824-850, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:122:y:2020:i:2:p:824-850
    DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12340
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12340
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjoe.12340?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marion, Justin & Muehlegger, Erich, 2011. "Fuel tax incidence and supply conditions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1202-1212.
    2. Munasib, Abdul & Rickman, Dan S., 2015. "Regional economic impacts of the shale gas and tight oil boom: A synthetic control analysis," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-17.
    3. Coffman, Makena & Noy, Ilan, 2012. "Hurricane Iniki: measuring the long-term economic impact of a natural disaster using synthetic control," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 187-205, April.
    4. Sarah Bohn & Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael, 2014. "Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act Reduce the State's Unauthorized Immigrant Population?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 258-269, May.
    5. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    6. Andreas Billmeier & Tommaso Nannicini, 2013. "Assessing Economic Liberalization Episodes: A Synthetic Control Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 983-1001, July.
    7. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    8. Leigh Andrew, 2010. "Who Benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit? Incidence among Recipients, Coworkers and Firms," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-43, May.
    9. Richard Blundell, 2009. "Assessing the Temporary VAT Cut Policy in the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 31-38, March.
    10. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    11. Dietrichson, Jens & Ellegård, Lina Maria, 2015. "Assist or desist? Conditional bailouts and fiscal discipline in local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 153-168.
    12. Bassok, Daphna & Fitzpatrick, Maria & Loeb, Susanna, 2014. "Does state preschool crowd-out private provision? The impact of universal preschool on the childcare sector in Oklahoma and Georgia," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 18-33.
    13. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 261-278, June.
    14. Martin Karlsson & Stefan Pichler, 2015. "Demographic consequences of HIV," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 1097-1135, October.
    15. Andr�s Castañeda & Juan F. Vargas, 2012. "Sovereign risk and armed conflict: an event-study for colombia," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 185-201, April.
    16. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    17. Ray Barrell & Martin Weale, 2009. "The Economics of a Reduction in VAT," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 17-30, March.
    18. Kosonen, Tuomas, 2015. "More and cheaper haircuts after VAT cut? On the efficiency and incidence of service sector consumption taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 87-100.
    19. Kaul, Ashok & Klößner, Stefan & Pfeifer, Gregor & Schieler, Manuel, 2015. "Synthetic Control Methods: Never Use All Pre-Intervention Outcomes Together With Covariates," MPRA Paper 83790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Doyle Jr., Joseph J. & Samphantharak, Krislert, 2008. "$2.00 Gas! Studying the effects of a gas tax moratorium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 869-884, April.
    21. Alberto Abadie & Alexis Diamond & Jens Hainmueller, 2015. "Comparative Politics and the Synthetic Control Method," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(2), pages 495-510, February.
    22. Ando, Michihito, 2015. "Dreams of urbanization: Quantitative case studies on the local impacts of nuclear power facilities using the synthetic control method," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 68-85.
    23. Ray Barrell & Martin Weale, 2009. "The Economics of a Reduction in VAT," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 17-30, March.
    24. Myles, Gareth D., 1989. "Ramsey tax rules for economies with imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 95-115, February.
    25. Carbonnier, Clement, 2007. "Who pays sales taxes? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1987-1999," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 1219-1229, June.
    26. Dorsett, Richard, 2013. "The effect of the Troubles on GDP in Northern Ireland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 119-133.
    27. Smith, Brock, 2015. "The resource curse exorcised: Evidence from a panel of countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 57-73.
    28. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:4:y:2015:p:960-979 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Bauhoff, Sebastian, 2014. "The effect of school district nutrition policies on dietary intake and overweight: A synthetic control approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 45-55.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nils Verheuvel & Joost Witteman & Marilou Vlaanderen, 2023. "Synthetic Control Method for Dutch Policy Evaluation," De Economist, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 51-83, March.
    2. Funke, Michael & Terasa, Raphael, 2022. "Has Germany’s temporary VAT rates cut as part of the COVID-19 fiscal stimulus boosted growth?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 450-473.
    3. Peng, Fei & Peng, Langchuan & Wang, Zheng, 2021. "How do VAT reforms in the service sectors impact TFP in the manufacturing sector: Firm-level evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giulio Grossi & Marco Mariani & Alessandra Mattei & Patrizia Lattarulo & Ozge Oner, 2020. "Direct and spillover effects of a new tramway line on the commercial vitality of peripheral streets. A synthetic-control approach," Papers 2004.05027, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    2. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    3. David Gilchrist & Thomas Emery & Nuno Garoupa & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Synthetic Control Method: A tool for comparative case studies in economic history," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 409-445, April.
    4. Bibek Adhikari & Romain Duval & Bingjie Hu & Prakash Loungani, 2018. "Can Reform Waves Turn the Tide? Some Case Studies using the Synthetic Control Method," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 879-910, September.
    5. Maïmouna Diakite & Jean-François Brun & Souleymane Diarra & Nasser Ary Tanimoune, 2017. "The effects of tax coordination on the tax revenue mobilization in West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)," CERDI Working papers halshs-01535104, HAL.
    6. Pier Basaglia & Sophie Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: How Tax Salience and Fuel Substitution Mediate Climate and Health Benefits," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2041, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Bibek Adhikari & James Alm, 2016. "Evaluating the Economic Effects of Flat Tax Reforms Using Synthetic Control Methods," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 437-463, October.
    8. Kleis, Mischa & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel, 2016. "The long-run effect of fiscal consolidation on economic growth: Evidence from quantitative case studies," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-047, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2016.
    9. Pier Basaglia & Sophie M. Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: Causal Effects of Fuel Taxation and Mediating Mechanisms for Reducing Climate and Pollution Costs," CESifo Working Paper Series 10508, CESifo.
    10. Emery, Thomas & Mélon, Lela & Spruk, Rok, 2023. "Does e-procurement matter for economic growth? Subnational evidence from Australia," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 318-334.
    11. Ferman, Bruno & Pinto, Cristine, 2016. "Revisiting the Synthetic Control Estimator," MPRA Paper 73982, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2018. "Firm types, price-setting strategies, and consumption-tax incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 48-72.
    13. Kaul, Ashok & Klößner, Stefan & Pfeifer, Gregor & Schieler, Manuel, 2015. "Synthetic Control Methods: Never Use All Pre-Intervention Outcomes Together With Covariates," MPRA Paper 83790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of U.S. Sick Pay Mandates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(2), pages 611-659.
    15. Klößner, Stefan & Pfeifer, Gregor, 2015. "Synthesizing Cash for Clunkers: Stabilizing the Car Market, Hurting the Environment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113207, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira-Font, 2020. "Ensuring Stability, Accuracy and Meaningfulness in Synthetic Control Methods: The Regularized SHAP-Distance Method," IREA Working Papers 202005, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2020.
    17. Bibek Adhikari, 2015. "When Does Introducing a Value-Added Tax Increase Economic Efficiency? Evidence from the Synthetic Control Method," Working Papers 1524, Tulane University, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2015.
    18. Bibek Adhikari & James Alm, 2016. "Evaluating the Economic Effects of Flat Tax Reforms Using Synthetic Control Methods," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 437-463, October.
    19. Castillo, Victoria & Figal Garone, Lucas & Maffioli, Alessandro & Salazar, Lina, 2017. "The causal effects of regional industrial policies on employment: A synthetic control approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 25-41.
    20. Firat Bilgel & Burhan Can Karahasan, 2019. "Thirty Years of Conflict and Economic Growth in Turkey: A Synthetic Control Approach," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(5), pages 609-631, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:122:y:2020:i:2:p:824-850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9442 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.