IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwppe/0303004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Politics of Tax Administration: Evidence from Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Alejandro Esteller-More

    (University of Barcelona & Barcelona Institute of Economics)

Abstract

Does there exist a connection between the political power and the tax administration? In this paper, we offer empirical evidence from Spain that there exists. First, the Spanish regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of the regional government, and tends to exert a greater (lower) effort in tax collection as the (expected) public deficit is greater (lower). At the same time, the system of unconditional grants provokes an "income effect" that disincentives the efforts carried out by the tax administration. Second, when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district decreases, the efforts also diminish, though this disincentive is lessened according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent (evidence of electoral competition).

Suggested Citation

  • Alejandro Esteller-More, 2003. "The Politics of Tax Administration: Evidence from Spain," Public Economics 0303004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0303004
    Note: Type of Document - PDF; prepared on IBM PC - PC-TEX; to print on HP; pages: 31 ; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/pe/papers/0303/0303004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    2. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2002. "The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1415-1451.
    3. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2002. "Tax avoidance, evasion, and administration," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1423-1470, Elsevier.
    4. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell S. Sobel, 2003. "The Political Economy of FEMA Disaster Payments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(3), pages 496-509, July.
    5. John Joseph Wallis, 1996. "What Determines the Allocation of National Government Grants to the States?," NBER Historical Working Papers 0090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Yair Mundlak, 1961. "Empirical Production Function Free of Management Bias," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 44-56.
    7. Andreoni, James, 1992. "IRS as loan shark tax compliance with borrowing constraints," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 35-46, October.
    8. Baretti, Christian & Huber, Bernd & Lichtblau, Karl, 2002. "A Tax on Tax Revenue: The Incentive Effects of Equalizing Transfers: Evidence from Germany," Munich Reprints in Economics 20129, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    9. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    10. Case, Anne, 2001. "Election goals and income redistribution: Recent evidence from Albania," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 405-423, March.
    11. Marilyn Young & Michael Reksulak & William F. Shughart, 2001. "The Political Economy of the IRS," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 201-220, July.
    12. Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November.
    13. Christian Baretti & Bernd Huber & Karl Lichtblau, 2002. "A Tax on Tax Revenue: The Incentive Effects of Equalizing Transfers: Evidence from Germany," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(6), pages 631-649, November.
    14. Holbrook, Thomas M. & Van Dunk, Emily, 1993. "Electoral Competition in the American States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 955-962, December.
    15. George E. Battese & Greg S. Corra, 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 169-179, December.
    16. Hunter, William J & Nelson, Michael A, 1995. "Tax Enforcement: A Public Choice Perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 82(1-2), pages 53-67, January.
    17. Mayshar, Joram, 1991. " Taxation with Costly Administration," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(1), pages 75-88.
    18. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 157-178, Winter.
    19. Kodde, David A & Palm, Franz C, 1986. "Wald Criteria for Jointly Testing Equality and Inequality Restriction s," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1243-1248, September.
    20. Battese, George E. & Corra, Greg S., 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 1-11, December.
    21. Grossman, Philip J. & Mavros, Panayiotis & Wassmer, Robert W., 1999. "Public Sector Technical Inefficiency in Large U.S. Cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 278-299, September.
    22. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    23. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    24. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1974. "Income tax evasion: A theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 201-202, May.
    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. Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2005. "Is There a Connection Between the Tax Administration and the Political Power?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(5), pages 639-663, September.
    2. Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2011. "Is the tax administration just a money machine? Empirical evidence on redistributive politics," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 275-299, September.
    3. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che & R. Quentin Grafton, 2004. "Technical efficiency effects of input controls: evidence from Australia's banana prawn fishery," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15), pages 1631-1641.
    4. Roy, Manish & Mazumder, Ritwik, 2016. "Technical Efficiency of Fish Catch in Traditional Fishing: A Study in Southern Assam," Journal of Regional Development and Planning, Rajarshi Majumder, vol. 5(1), pages 55-68.
    5. Roberto Furesi & Fabio Madau & Pietro Pulina, 2013. "Technical efficiency in the sheep dairy industry: an application on the Sardinian (Italy) sector," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    7. Tom Kompas, 2004. "Market reform, productivity and efficiency in Vietnamese rice production," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec04-4, International and Development Economics.
    8. Thi Bich Tran & R. Quentin Grafton & Tom Kompas, 2008. "Firm Efficiency in a Transitional Economy: Evidence from Vietnam," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 47-66, March.
    9. Manlagnit, Maria Chelo V., 2015. "Basel regulations and banks’ efficiency: The case of the Philippines," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 72-85.
    10. Madau, Fabio A., 2011. "Parametric Estimation of Technical and Scale Efficiencies in Italian Citrus Farming," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 12(1).
    11. Arbelo-Pérez, Marta & Arbelo, Antonio & Pérez-Gómez, Pilar, 2017. "Impact of quality on estimations of hotel efficiency," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 200-208.
    12. Francisca Pacheco & Rafael Sánchez & Mauricio G. Villena, 2021. "Estimating local government efficiency using a panel data parametric approach: the case of Chilean municipalities," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 292-314, January.
    13. Rajesh Raj S.N., 2011. "Technical Efficiency in the Informal Manufacturing Sector," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 6(2), pages 213-232, October.
    14. Estache, Antonio & Rossi, Martin, 2004. "Have consumers benefited from the reforms in the electricity distribution sector in Latin America?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3420, The World Bank.
    15. Michael D. Rosko, 2001. "Cost efficiency of US hospitals: a stochastic frontier approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(6), pages 539-551, September.
    16. Richard T. Yao & Gerald E. Shively, 2007. "Technical Change and Productive Efficiency: Irrigated Rice in the Philippines," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 155-168, June.
    17. Tom Kompas, 2001. "Catch, Efficiency and Management: A Stochastic Production Frontier Analysis of the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec01-8, International and Development Economics.
    18. Lazović-Pita Lejla & Šćeta Lamija, 2021. "A Stochastic Frontier Approach to Measuring Inefficiency of Local Communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 18-29, June.
    19. Gauri Khanna, 2006. "Technical Efficiency in Production and Resource Use in Sugar Cane: A Stochastic Frontier Production Function Analysis," IHEID Working Papers 15-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    20. Garcia Suarez, F. & Quesada, G. Perez & Molina Ricetto, C., 2018. "Rangeland cattle production in Uruguay: single-output versus multi-output efficiency measures," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277178, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax Administration; Political Economy;

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wpa:wuwppe:0303004. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.