IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/4064.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of the Business Cycle on Elasticities of Tax Revenue in Latin America

Author

Listed:
  • Machado, Roberto
  • Zuloeta, José

Abstract

This paper estimates short-run and long-run elasticities of tax revenue with respect to GDP in eight Latin American countries using quarterly data. Taxes considered are corporate income tax (CIT), personal income tax (PIT), value-added tax (VAT), and overall taxes. Results indicate that long-run elasticities are statistically and economically larger than 1, whereas short-run elasticities appear not to be statistically different from zero in the majority of cases. Tax systems seem very elastic in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The CIT exhibits the largest estimated long-run elasticity in most countries. Focusing on short-run elasticities that show statistical significance, only the CIT in Colombia and the PIT in Brazil and Colombia show larger fluctuations over the business cycle than growth potential in the long run. Overall, our results indicate that tax systems in Latin America are significantly more elastic than previous estimations.

Suggested Citation

  • Machado, Roberto & Zuloeta, José, 2012. "The Impact of the Business Cycle on Elasticities of Tax Revenue in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4064, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:4064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/The-Impact-of-the-Business-Cycle-on-Elasticities-of-Tax-Revenue-in-Latin-America.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nathalie Girouard & Christophe André, 2005. "Measuring Cyclically-adjusted Budget Balances for OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 434, OECD Publishing.
    2. Donald Bruce & William F. Fox & M.H. Tuttle, 2006. "Tax Base Elasticities: A Multi-State Analysis of Long-Run and Short-Run Dynamics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 315-341, October.
    3. Mr. John D Brondolo, 2009. "Collecting Taxes During an Economic Crisis: Challenges and Policy Options," IMF Staff Position Notes 2009/017, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Mr. Jeromin Zettelmeyer & Ivanna Vladkova Hollar, 2008. "Fiscal Positions in Latin America: Have They Really Improved?," IMF Working Papers 2008/137, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Andrews, Donald W K, 1991. "Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 817-858, May.
    6. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    7. Granger, C W J & Lee, T H, 1989. "Investigation of Production, Sales and Inventory Relationships Using Multicointegration and Non-symmetric Error Correction Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(S), pages 145-159, Supplemen.
    8. Sobel, Russell S. & Holcombe, Randall G., 1996. "Measuring the Growth and Variability of Tax Bases Over the Business Cycle," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(4), pages 535-552, December.
    9. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    10. Christian Daude & Ángel Melguizo & Alejandro Neut, 2010. "Fiscal Policy in Latin America: Countercyclical and Sustainable at Last?," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 291, OECD Publishing.
    11. Glenn Jenkins & CHUN-YAN KUO & GANGADHAR SHUKLA, 2000. "Tax Analysis and Revenue Forecasting," Development Discussion Papers 2000-05, JDI Executive Programs.
    12. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    13. Sobel, Russell S. & Holcombe, Randall G., 1996. "Measuring the Growth and Variability of Tax Bases over the Business Cycle," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 49(4), pages 535-52, December.
    14. Claude Giorno & Pete Richardson & Deborah Roseveare & Paul van den Noord, 1995. "Estimating Potential Output, Output Gaps and Structural Budget Balances," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 152, OECD Publishing.
    15. Daude, Christian & Melguizo, Ángel & Neut, Alejandro, 2010. "Fiscal policy in Latin America: better after all?," Economics Discussion Papers 2010-24, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. John Brondolo, 2009. "Collecting Taxes During an Economic Crisis; Challenges and Policy Options," IMF Staff Position Notes 2009/17, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Lagravinese, Raffaele & Liberati, Paolo & Sacchi, Agnese, 2020. "Tax buoyancy in OECD countries: New empirical evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    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. Bernd Hayo & Sascha Mierzwa & Umut Unal, 2021. "Estimating Policy-Corrected Long-Term and Short-Term Tax Elasticities for the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202112, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Guido Wolswijk, 2009. "The short- and long-run tax revenue response to changes in tax bases," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 1960-1970.
    3. Minxian, Yang, 1998. "System estimators of cointegrating matrix in absence of normalising information," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 317-337, August.
    4. Donald Bruce & William F. Fox & M. H. Tuttle, 2006. "Tax Base Elasticities: A Multi‐State Analysis of Long‐Run and Short‐Run Dynamics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 315-341, October.
    5. Gilles Mourre & Savina Princen, 2015. "Tax Revenue Elasticities Corrected for Policy Changes in the EU," European Economy - Discussion Papers 018, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    6. Koester, Gerrit & Priesmeier, Christoph, 2017. "Revenue elasticities in euro area countries," Working Paper Series 1989, European Central Bank.
    7. Bernd Hayo & Sascha Mierzwa & Umut Ünal, 2023. "Estimating policy-corrected long-term and short-term tax elasticities for the USA, Germany, and the United Kingdom," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 465-504, January.
    8. Francis Kwaw Andoh & Nehemiah E. Osoro & Eliab Luvanda, 2019. "Growth Dynamics of Value-Added Tax Revenue in Ghana," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 13(2), June.
    9. Ekaterini Panopoulou, 2005. "A Resolution of the Fisher Effect Puzzle: A Comparison of Estimators," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2005 18, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    10. Bunzel, Helle, 2006. "FIXED-b ASYMPTOTICS IN SINGLE-EQUATION COINTEGRATION MODELS WITH ENDOGENOUS REGRESSORS," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 743-755, August.
    11. Tomasz Jędrzejowicz & Kamila Sławińska, 2014. "Shifting from Labor to Consumption Taxes: The Impact on Tax Revenue Volatility," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 6, pages 81-101.
    12. Joshua C. Hall & Antonios M. Koumpias, 2018. "Growth And Variability Of School District Income Tax Revenues: Is Tax Base Diversification A Good Idea For School Financing?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 678-691, October.
    13. Freeman, Mark C. & Groom, Ben & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Pantelidis, Theologos, 2015. "Declining discount rates and the Fisher Effect: Inflated past, discounted future?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 32-49.
    14. Kaufmann, Robert K. & Ullman, Ben, 2009. "Oil prices, speculation, and fundamentals: Interpreting causal relations among spot and futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 550-558, July.
    15. Inagaki, Kazuyuki, 2009. "Estimating the interest rate semi-elasticity of the demand for money in low interest rate environments," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 147-154, January.
    16. Giulio Cifarelli, 1995. "Fundamentals, regime shifts, and dollar behavior in the 1980s," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 29-48, January.
    17. Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Pantelidis, Theologos, 2016. "The Fisher effect in the presence of time-varying coefficients," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 495-511.
    18. Robert M. deJong, 2000. "Nonlinear Minimization Estimators in the Presence of Cointegrating Relations," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1651, Econometric Society.
    19. Müller, Ulrich K. & Watson, Mark W., 2013. "Low-frequency robust cointegration testing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 174(2), pages 66-81.
    20. Lee, Jim, 2000. "The Robustness of Okun's Law: Evidence from OECD Countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 331-356, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax revenue; Elasticities; Business cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H29 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Other

    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:idb:brikps:4064. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.