IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nax/conyad/v62y2017i3p1041-1057.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax structure and economic growth: Evidence from the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Desislava Stoilova

    (South-West University “Neofit Rilski” Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria)

Abstract

Optimum design of a tax system depends on numerous factors and differs from country to country. A variety of studies claim that raising consumption taxes while at the same time lowering taxes on labour and capital can stimulate the economy's growth forces. At the same time, other studies note that tax burden and tax structure would have different impacts on economic activity for different countries and periods and under varying circumstances. In this respect the main purpose of this paper is to provide one more estimate and a few more suggestions for growth-conductive taxation. The study is focused on the impact of tax structure on the economic growth in the EU-28 member states for the period 1996–2013. The descriptive analysis is focused on the cross-country differences in terms of total tax burden and design of tax structure, while the empirical analysis studies the impact of taxation on the economic growth through regressions on pooled panel data. The conclusion is that tax structure based on selective consumption taxes, taxes on personal income and property is more supporting to the economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Desislava Stoilova, 2017. "Tax structure and economic growth: Evidence from the European Union," Contaduría y Administración, Accounting and Management, vol. 62(3), pages 1041-1057, Julio-Sep.
    • Handle: RePEc:nax:conyad:v:62:y:2017:i:3:p:1041-1057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cya.unam.mx/index.php/cya/article/view/1094
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernardi, LUIGI, 2013. "Recent findings regarding the shift from direct to indirect taxation in the EA-17," MPRA Paper 47877, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    3. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Jiri Schwarz, 2016. "Dynamic elasticities of tax revenue: evidence from the Czech Republic," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(60), pages 5866-5881, December.
    4. Stoyan Tanchev, 2016. "The Role of The Proportional Income Tax on Economic Growth of Bulgaria," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 66-77.
    5. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    6. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    7. Davoodi, Hamid & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Study," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 244-257, March.
    8. Szarowska, Irena, 2013. "Effects of taxation by economic functions on economic growth in the European Union," MPRA Paper 59781, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    10. Christoph Schaltegger & Benno Torgler, 2006. "Growth effects of public expenditure on the state and local level: evidence from a sample of rich governments," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1181-1192.
    11. Kneller, Richard & Bleaney, Michael F. & Gemmell, Norman, 1999. "Fiscal policy and growth: evidence from OECD countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 171-190, November.
    12. Dimitrios PAPARAS & Christian RICHTER & Alexandros PAPARAS, 2015. "Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth, Empirical Evidence in European Union," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 2(4), pages 239-268, December.
    13. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Cagé, Julia & Kerr, William R., 2016. "Taxation, corruption, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 24-51.
    14. Agell, Jonas & Ohlsson, Henry & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2006. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries: A comment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 211-218, January.
    15. Cyrille Schwellnus & Jens Matthias Arnold, 2008. "Do Corporate Taxes Reduce Productivity and Investment at the Firm Level?: Cross-Country Evidence from the Amadeus Dataset," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 641, OECD Publishing.
    16. Dackehag , Margareta & Hansson, Åsa, 2012. "Taxation of Income and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of 25 Rich OECD Countries," Working Papers 2012:6, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    17. Todorov Ivan Krumov, 2014. "Macroeconomic Trends in the New Member Countries of the European Union Before the Euro Area Debt Crisis," Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 61(2), pages 197-217, December.
    18. Koester, Reinhard B & Kormendi, Roger C, 1989. "Taxation, Aggregate Activity and Economic Growth: Cross-Country Evidence on Some Supply-Side Hypotheses," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(3), pages 367-386, July.
    19. Jens Matthias Arnold, 2008. "Do Tax Structures Affect Aggregate Economic Growth?: Empirical Evidence from a Panel of OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 643, OECD Publishing.
    20. Dimitrios Paparas & Christian Richter, 2015. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: Empirical evidence from the European Union," Working Papers 2015.06, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    21. Lee, Young & Gordon, Roger H., 2005. "Tax structure and economic growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 1027-1043, June.
    22. Laura Vartia, 2008. "How do Taxes Affect Investment and Productivity?: An Industry-Level Analysis of OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 656, OECD Publishing.
    23. Åsa Johansson & Chistopher Heady & Jens Matthias Arnold & Bert Brys & Laura Vartia, 2008. "Taxation and Economic Growth," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 620, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Narayan Sethi & Saileja Mohanty & Sanhita Sucharita & Nanthakumar Loganathan, 2020. "Tax Reform And Economic Growth Nexus In India: Evidence From The Cointegration And Rolling-Window Causality," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(06), pages 1699-1725, December.
    2. Dackehag, Margareta & Hansson, Åsa, 2015. "Taxation of Dividend Income and Economic Growth: The Case of Europe," Working Paper Series 1081, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Andrew Phiri, 2016. "The Growth Trade-off between Direct and Indirect Taxes in South Africa: Evidence from a STR Model," Managing Global Transitions, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, vol. 14(3 (Fall)), pages 233-250.
    4. Dackehag , Margareta & Hansson, Åsa, 2012. "Taxation of Income and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of 25 Rich OECD Countries," Working Papers 2012:6, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    5. Desislava Stoilova & Ivan Todorov, 2021. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 7(2), pages 146-159.
    6. Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2011. "A retrospective evaluation of elements of the EU VAT system," Taxation Studies 0039, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    7. Nazila Alinaghi & W. Robert Reed, 2021. "Taxes and Economic Growth in OECD Countries: A Meta-analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 49(1), pages 3-40, January.
    8. Emilian DOBRESCU, 2016. "Controversies over the Size of the Public Budget," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(4), pages 5-34, December.
    9. Lucas Menescal & José Alves, 2022. "Optimal Threshold Taxation: An Empirical Investigation for Developing Economies," CESifo Working Paper Series 9782, CESifo.
    10. Margit Schratzenstaller, 2006. "Teilstudie 12: Wachstumsimpulse durch die öffentliche Hand," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 27451, April.
    11. Hans Pitlik & Margit Schratzenstaller, 2011. "Growth Implications of Structure and Size of Public Sectors," WIFO Working Papers 404, WIFO.
    12. Silvestro Sanzo & Mariano Bella & Giovanni Graziano, 2017. "Tax Structure and Economic Growth: A Panel Cointegrated VAR Analysis," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 3(2), pages 239-253, July.
    13. Jing Xing, 2011. "Does tax structure affect economic growth? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," Working Papers 1120, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    14. Ferdi Celikay, 2020. "Dimensions of tax burden: a review on OECD countries," Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(49), pages 27-43, March.
    15. Francisco de Castro Fernández & José Manuel González Mínguez, 2008. "The composition of public finances and long-term growth: a macroeconomic approach," Occasional Papers 0809, Banco de España.
    16. Dimitrios Paparas & Christian Richter, 2015. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: Empirical evidence from the European Union," Working Papers 2015.06, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    17. Almanzar, Miguel & Torero, Maximo, 2017. "Distributional Effects of Growth and Public Expenditures in Africa: Estimates for Tanzania and Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 177-195.
    18. Bayraktar, Nihal & Moreno-Dodson, Blanca, 2010. "How can public spending help you grow? an empirical analysis for developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5367, The World Bank.
    19. Yaya KEHO, 2011. "Tax Structure and Economic Growth in Cote dIvoire: Are Some Taxes Better Than Others?," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 1(4), pages 226-235, December.
    20. Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, Victoria, 2002. "Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Fiscal Policies on Long-Run Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-028/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 23 Apr 2003.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax structure; Economic growth; European Union.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    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:nax:conyad:v:62:y:2017:i:3:p:1041-1057. 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: Alberto García-Narvaez (Technical Editor) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fcunamx.html .

    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.