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Fiscal Drag - An Automatic Stabiliser?

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  • Immervoll, H.

Abstract

Inflation can alter the structure of tax systems and lead to higher real tax burdens. The ‘automatic stabiliser’ argument assumes that increasing tax burdens reduce consumption and thereby aggregate demand, acting as an automatic stabiliser which helps to ‘cool down’ the economy in times of inflation. This argument, however, only looks at the demand side, ignoring any effects that higher tax burdens may have on the cost of production. If employees bear less then the full burden of higher taxes then real labour costs will also go up, generating a cost-push upwards pressure on prices and opening up the possibility of a wage-price spiral. I compute distributions of inflation induced changes of marginal and average effective tax rates for four European countries using a preliminary version of EUROMOD, a European tax-benefit model. Possible wage effects of these changes are then discussed in an imperfect labour market framework.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge in its series Cambridge Working Papers in Economics with number 0025.

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Date of creation: Dec 2000
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Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0025

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Cited by:
  1. Levy, Horacio & Nogueira, José Ricardo & Bezerra de Siqueira, Rozane & Immervoll, Herwig & O’Donoghue, Cathal, 2008. "Simulating the impact of inflation on the progressivity of personal income tax in Brazil," LATINMOD Working Papers Series 2008-01, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México.
  2. Sutherland, Holly, 2001. "EUROMOD: an integrated European benefit-tax model: final report," EUROMOD Working Papers EM9/01, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  3. Herwig Immervoll & Cathal O'Donoghue, 2003. "Welfare Benefits and Work Incentives. An Analysis of the Distribution of Net Replacement Rates in Europe using EUROMOD, a Multi- Country Microsimulation Model," Labor and Demography 0302001, EconWPA.
  4. Immervoll, Herwig & O'Donoghue, Cathal, 2001. "Towards a multi purpose framework for tax benefit microsimulation," EUROMOD Working Papers EM2/01, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  5. Hechtner, Frank & Massarrat-Mashhadi, Nima & Sielaff, Christian, 2012. "Eine Analyse zur Einkommensteuerbelastung und Wirkung der kalten Progression der vergangenen 20 Jahre in Deutschland," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 137, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
  6. Feres, Patricio & Immervoll, Herwig & Lietz, Christine & Levy, Horacio & Mantovani, Daniela & Sutherland, Holly, 2002. "Indicators for social inclusion in the European Union: how responsive are they to macro-level changes?," EUROMOD Working Papers EM3/02, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  7. Li, Jinjing & O'Donoghue, Cathal, 2011. "Incentives of Retirement Transition for Elderly Workers: An Analysis of Actual and Simulated Replacement Rates in Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 5865, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  8. Lietz, Christine & Mantovani, Daniela, 2006. "Lessons from building and using EUROMOD," EUROMOD Working Papers EM5/06, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

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