Social values shape policy outcomes. We examine the role of postmaterialism, a widely used concept in the social sciences, for the mix of capital and labour taxation chosen by a society. Following political scientist Inglehart, we define the degree of postmaterialism as the relative importance which individuals or a society as a whole ascribe to non-material values over material things. We incorporate this notion into a simple tax model for a small open economy. We show that a greater emphasis on immaterial values will lower the ratio of capital to labour taxes. Subsequently, we test our theoretical results empirically, using a panel data set comprising 17 OECD countries over the period 1981-2000. Proxies for the degree of postmaterialism are developed from the World Values Surveys. Their impact on the tax mix is highly significant and goes into the theoretically predicted direction.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
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Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005.
"Fairness and Redistribution,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
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Uhlaner, L.M. & Thurik, A.R., 2006.
"Postmaterialism Influencing Total Entrepreneurial Activity across Nations,"
Research Paper
ERS-2006-062-ORG Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
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