This paper analyses how collective bargaining affects the level and structure of labour and capital taxes in OECD countries by using cross-country-time-series data. Corporatist countries are found to have higher effective labor taxes on average during the 1970-1996 period. Effective capital taxes, in turn, are higher in the countries where union membership is higher. Estimation results suggest that reduction in the effective labor taxes decreases unemployment only in the unionized countries with decentralized wage bargaining. The capital taxes have only a small distorting effect on per-capita GDP growth, but there is no conclusive evidence on neither direct or indirect effect of the labor taxes on growth. Small or non-existent distortionary effects of capital and labour taxes on growth can be due to the potential efficiency gains arising from redistributive taxation. Potential efficiency gains of redistribution are supported by the finding that inequality seem to have a negative effect on per-capita GDP growth.
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Paper provided by Government Institute for Economic Research Finland (VATT) in its series Discussion Papers with number
235.
Length: Date of creation: 19 Dec 2000 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:fer:dpaper:235
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
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.:
Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002.
"Political economics and public finance,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659
Elsevier.
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