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How Far Are We From the Slippery Slope? The Laffer Curve Revisited

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  • Uhlig, Harald
  • Trabandt, Mathias

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to examine the shape of the Laffer curve quantitatively in a simple neoclassical growth model calibrated to the US as well as to the EU-15 economy. We show that the US and the EU-15 area are located on the left side of their labor and capital tax Laffer curves, but the EU-15 economy being much closer to the slippery slopes than the US. Our results indicate that since 1975 the EU-15 area has moved considerably closer to the peaks of their Laffer curves. We find that the slope of the Laffer curve in the EU-15 economy is much flatter than in the US which documents a much higher degree of distortions in the EU-15 area. A dynamic scoring analysis shows that more than one half of a labor tax cut and more than four fifth of a capital tax cut are self-financing in the EU-15 economy.

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  • Uhlig, Harald & Trabandt, Mathias, 2006. "How Far Are We From the Slippery Slope? The Laffer Curve Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 5657, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5657
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    Keywords

    Laffer curve; Us and eu-15 economy;

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General

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