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Tax Systems in the World: An Empirical Investigation into the Importance of Tax Bases, Administration Costs, Scale and Political Regime

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Author Info
Lawrence Kenny ()
Stanley Winer ()

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Abstract

We study the structure of taxation in a sample of 100 democratic and nondemocratic regimes over three time periods. The results provide strong support for several regularities in the world as a whole, specifically (1) scale effect: utilization of each tax source increases as the government expands, (2) base effect: tax systems rely more heavily on relatively larger tax bases, and (3) administrative cost effect: lower costs of administration lead to increased reliance on the corresponding revenue source. We also investigate the role of political regime and find that democracies rely substantially more on other income taxation, possibly because this tax source requires a higher degree of voluntary compliance. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10797-006-3564-7
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal International Tax and Public Finance.

Volume (Year): 13 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 181-215
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Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:13:y:2006:i:2:p:181-215

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Related research
Keywords: political economy; tax structure; tax mix; tax bases; administration costs; political regime;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Becker, Gary S & Mulligan, Casey B, 2003. "Deadweight Costs and the Size of Government," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 293-340, October.
    Other versions:
  2. Martin C. McGuire & Mancur Olson Jr., 1996. "The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 72-96, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. James M. Poterba & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1990. "Inflation And Taxation With Optimizing Governments," NBER Working Papers 2567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Hettich, Walter & Winer, Stanley L, 1988. "Economic and Political Foundations of Tax Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 701-12, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2001. "A Theory of Political Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 938-963, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Habibi, Nader, 1994. "Budgetary policy and political liberty: A cross-sectional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 579-586, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Casey B. Mulligan & Ricard Gil & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2004. "Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 51-74, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1991. "Explaining fiscal policies and inflation in developing countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1, Supple), pages S16-S48, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Winer, Stanley L. & Hettich, Walter, 1991. "Debt and tariffs : An empirical investigation of the evolution of revenue systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 215-242, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Fauvelle-Aymar, Christine, 1999. "The Political and Tax Capacity of Government in Developing Countries," Kyklos, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(3), pages 391-413.
  12. Casey Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2004. "Internationally Common Features of Public Old-Age Pensions, and Their Implications for Models of the Public Sector," Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1067-1067. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Hettich, Walter & Winer, Stanley, 1984. "A positive model of tax structure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 67-87, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Lars P. Feld & Bruno S. Frey, 2002. "Trust breeds trust: How taxpayers are treated," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 87-99, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 1994. "Sources of economic growth," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-46, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Aidt, T.S. & Jense , P.S., 2007. "Tax Structure, Size of Government, and the Extension of the Voting Franchise in Western Europe, 1860-1938," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0715, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Andreas Haufler & Alexander Klemm & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2008. "Economic integration and the relationship between profit and wage taxes," Working Papers 0810, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Dhammika Dharmapala & James R. Hines Jr., 2006. "Which Countries Become Tax Havens?," NBER Working Papers 12802, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Stanley L. Winer & Michael W. Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John H. Aldrich, . "Is it Economics or Politics? Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth of Government, 1930-2002," Carleton Economic Papers 07-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 28 Apr 2007. [Downloadable!]
  5. Aidt, T. & Jensen, P.S., 2007. "The Taxman Tools Up: An Event History Study of the Introduction of the Personal Income Tax in Western Europe, 1815-1941," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0766, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
  6. Stanley Winer & Michael Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John Aldrich, 2008. "Trending economic factors and the structure of Congress in the growth of government, 1930–2002," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 415-448, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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