IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/16574.html

The Impact of Taxes on Employment and Economic Growth in Industrialized Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Seward, Thomas

Abstract

Looking at economic trends in industrialized countries during the time frame 1965 to 1995, there has been an upward trend in unemployment, which appears to be related to the slowdown of economic growth. However, the relation between unemployment and a slowing growth pattern stems from an external variable: a rapid increase in the cost of labor. There are many factors behind the rise of labor costs, but the most significant reason is from higher taxes being placed on labor. Increasing labor taxes have two primary effects on employment and growth. First, the demand for labor is decreased as the cost rises, therefore creating unemployment. Second, because the cost of labor rises, firms will begin replacing labor with capital until the marginal product of capital falls, diminishing the incentive for investment and growth. The empirical evidence found in this paper proves this theory is accurate as a 10 percentage point increase in the tax rate on labor increase the unemployment rate by 5.3 percentage points and decreases growth by 2.1 percentage points.

Suggested Citation

  • Seward, Thomas, 2008. "The Impact of Taxes on Employment and Economic Growth in Industrialized Countries," MPRA Paper 16574, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16574
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/16574/1/MPRA_paper_16574.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mofidi, Alaeddin & Stone, Joe A, 1990. "Do State and Local Taxes Affect Economic Growth?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 686-691, November.
    2. Francesco Daveri & Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Unemployment, growth and taxation in industrial countries," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 15(30), pages 48-104.
    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. Michael Mitsopoulos, 2017. "Overtaxation of Private Sector Salaried Employment as a Key Impediment to the Recovery of Greece," Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions, in: Dimitrios D. Thomakos & Konstantinos I. Nikolopoulos (ed.), Taxation in Crisis, chapter 12, pages 289-336, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Michael MITSOPOULOS & Theodore PELAGIDIS, 2021. "Labor Taxation And Investment In Developed Countries. The Impact On Employment," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(2), pages 13-31, June.
    3. Hlalefang Khobai & Khumbuzile Dladla, 2018. "The impact of taxation on economic growth in South Africa," Working Papers 1818, Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University.
    4. Maganya Mnaku Honest, 2020. "Tax revenue and economic growth in developing country: an autoregressive distribution lags approach," Central European Economic Journal, Paradigm, vol. 7(54), pages 205-217, January.

    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. Theodore M. Crone, 1997. "Where have all the factory jobs gone - and why?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue May, pages 3-18.
    2. Langot, François & Quintero Rojas, Coralia, 2008. "Explaining the Evolution of Hours Worked and Employment across OECD Countries: An Equilibrium Search Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 3364, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Liotti, Giorgio, 2020. "Labour market flexibility, economic crisis and youth unemployment in Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 150-162.
    4. Mario Holzner & Maruška Vizek & Goran Vukšić, 2022. "Wage Bargaining Coordination, Taxation and Labor Costs: The Effects of Fiscal Devaluation," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 324-349, June.
    5. Huang, Chien-Yu & Ji, Lei, 2013. "Knowledge-intensive business services and economic growth with endogenous market structure," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 95-106.
    6. Murtin, Fabrice & de Serres, Alain & Hijzen, Alexander, 2014. "Unemployment and the coverage extension of collective wage agreements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 52-66.
    7. Gabriella Deborah Legrenzi & Costas Milas, 2010. "Spend-and-Tax Adjustments and the Sustainability of the Government's Intertemporal Budget Constraint," CESifo Working Paper Series 2926, CESifo.
    8. Andrea Bassanini & Stefano Scarpetta, 2003. "The Driving Forces of Economic Growth: Panel Data Evidence for the OECD Countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2001(2), pages 9-56.
    9. Davide Furceri & Ernesto Crivelli & Mr. Joël Toujas-Bernate, 2012. "Can Policies Affect Employment Intensity of Growth? A Cross-Country Analysis," IMF Working Papers 2012/218, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Michael Bräuninger, 2005. "Social Security, Unemployment, and Growth," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 423-434, August.
    11. Lori L. Taylor & Stephen P. A. Brown, 2006. "The Private Sector Impact Of State And Local Government: Has More Become Bad?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(4), pages 548-562, October.
    12. Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues dos & Pereira, Thiago Neves, 2010. "Moving to a Consumption-Based Tax System: A Quantitative Assessment for Brazil," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 64(2), June.
    13. Doménech, Rafael & Garcí­a, José Ramón, 2008. "Unemployment, taxation and public expenditure in OECD economies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 202-217, March.
    14. Pantuosco, Lou & Parker, Darrell, 1998. "Sources of Prevailing Differences in Unemployment Rates For Selected Regional Pairs," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 28(2), pages 35-46, Fall.
    15. Marelli, Enrico, 1999. "Convergence and asymmetries in the employment dynamics of the European regions," ERSA conference papers ersa99pa120, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Marko Köthenbürger & Panu Poutvaara, 2002. "Social Security Reform and Intergenerational Trade: Is there Scope for a Pareto-Improvement?," CESifo Working Paper Series 795, CESifo.
    17. Pellizzari, Michele, 2006. "Unemployment duration and the interactions between unemployment insurance and social assistance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 773-798, December.
    18. Roland Benabou, 2002. "Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 481-517, March.
    19. Roa Maria J & Vazquez Francisco Jose & Saura Dulce, 2008. "Unemployment and Economic Growth Cycles," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, May.
    20. van Ours, Jan C., 2015. "The Great Recession was not so great," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-12.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:16574. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.