IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8252.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Tax Shocks on Output: Not So Large, But Not Small Either

Author

Listed:
  • Perotti, Roberto

Abstract

In a seminal contribution, Romer and Romer (2010) introduce a new dataset of exogenous tax changes and estimate a tax multiplier at 3 years of about -3. These results have been criticized as implausibly large. In this paper, I argue that on theoretical grounds the discretionary component of taxation should be allowed to have different effects on output than the automatic response of tax revenues to macroeconomic variables. Existing approaches, that do not allow for this difference, exhibit impulse responses that are biased towards 0. I then show that allowing for this difference leads to tax multipliers that are about half-way between the large effects estimated by Romer and Romer and the much smaller effects estimated by Favero and Giavazzi (2010): typically, a one percentage point of GDP increase in taxes leads to a decline in GDP by about 1.5 percentage points after 3 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Perotti, Roberto, 2011. "The Effects of Tax Shocks on Output: Not So Large, But Not Small Either," CEPR Discussion Papers 8252, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8252
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
    2. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    3. Ryan Chahrour & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2012. "A Model-Based Evaluation of the Debate on the Size of the Tax Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 28-45, May.
    4. Carlo A. Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2010. "Reconciling VAR-based and Narrative Measures of the Tax-Multiplier," Working Papers 361, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    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. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2015. "Regional effects of federal tax shocks," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 343-360, October.
    2. Antoine Goujard, 2017. "Cross‐Country Spillovers from Fiscal Consolidations," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 38, pages 219-267, June.
    3. Andrew Bossie, 2013. "The Effect of Fiscal Policy Shocks on the Flow of Funds," 2013 Papers pbo741, Job Market Papers.
    4. Daniel Riera-Crichton & Carlos A. Vegh & Guillermo Vuletin, 2017. "Tax policy and the macroeconomy: Measurement, identification, and non-linearities," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 35(82), pages 10-17, April.
    5. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    6. Hernando Vargas & Andrés González & Ignacio Lozano, 2015. "Macroeconomic Gains from Structural Fiscal Policy Adjustments: The Case of Colombia," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 39-81, February.
    7. Kneller, Richard Anthony & Misch, Florian, 2011. "What does ex-post evidence tell us about the output effects of future tax reforms?," ZEW Discussion Papers 11-029, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Mertens, Karel & Ravn, Morten O., 2014. "A reconciliation of SVAR and narrative estimates of tax multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S), pages 1-19.
    9. Francesco Caprioli & Sandro Momigliano, 2011. "The effects of fiscal shocks with debt-stabilizing budgetary policies in Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 839, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Karl Aiginger, 2011. "Why Growth Performance Differed across Countries in the Recent Crisis: the Impact of Pre-crisis Conditions," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 1, pages 35-52, August.
    11. Florian Wöhlbier & Caterina Astarita & Gilles Mourre, 2014. "Consolidation on the revenue side and growth-friendly tax structures: an indicator based approach," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 513, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    12. repec:bdr:ensayo:v:35:y:2017:i:82:p:56-75 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ms. Anja Baum & Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro & Miss Anke Weber, 2012. "Fiscal Multipliers and the State of the Economy," IMF Working Papers 2012/286, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Riera-Crichton, Daniel & Vegh, Carlos A. & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2016. "Tax multipliers: Pitfalls in measurement and identification," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 30-48.
    15. Olivier Cardi & Romain Restout, 2014. "Unanticipated vs. Anticipated Tax Reforms in a Two-Sector Open Economy," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 373-406, April.
    16. Luigi, Bernardi, 2011. "Economic crisis and taxation in Europe," MPRA Paper 31007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2011. "A retrospective evaluation of elements of the EU VAT system," Taxation Studies 0039, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.

    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. Tommaso Monacelli & Roberto Perotti & Antonella Trigari, 2013. "Taxes and the Labor Market," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí (ed.),Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edition 1, volume 17, chapter 2, pages 27-58, Central Bank of Chile.
    2. Roberto Perotti, 2010. "The Effects of Tax Shocks on Output: Not So Large, but Not Small Either," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy (Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar, TAPES), pages 214-237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Roel Beetsma & Massimo Giuliodori, 2011. "The Effects of Government Purchases Shocks: Review and Estimates for the EU," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(550), pages 4-32, February.
    4. Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2023. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy‐SVARs Robust?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 95-122, February.
    5. Sims, Eric & Wolff, Jonathan, 2018. "The state-dependent effects of tax shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 57-85.
    6. Mertens, Karel & Ravn, Morten O., 2014. "A reconciliation of SVAR and narrative estimates of tax multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S), pages 1-19.
    7. Jones, Paul M. & Olson, Eric & Wohar, Mark E., 2015. "Asymmetric tax multipliers," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 38-48.
    8. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2015. "Regional effects of federal tax shocks," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 343-360, October.
    9. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2011. "Technology-Hours Redux: Tax Changes and the Measurement of Technology Shocks," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(1), pages 41-76.
    10. Ryan Chahrour & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2012. "A Model-Based Evaluation of the Debate on the Size of the Tax Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 28-45, May.
    11. Hebous, Shafik & Zimmermann, Tom, 2014. "Revisiting the Narrative Approach of Estimating Fiscal Multipliers," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100408, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Metiu, Norbert, 2021. "Anticipation effects of protectionist U.S. trade policies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    14. Lorenzo Carbonari & Alessio Farcomeni & Filippo Maurici & Giovanni Trovato, 2023. "On the output effect of fiscal consolidation plans: a causal analysis," Working Paper series 23-18, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    15. Fotiou, Alexandra & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2020. "The fiscal state-dependent effects of capital income tax cuts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    16. Alejandro López-Vera & Andrés D. Pinchao-Rosero & Norberto Rodríguez-Niño, 2018. "Non-Linear Fiscal Multipliers for Public Expenditure and Tax Revenue in Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 36(85), pages 48-64, April.
    17. Ricardo Félix & Gabriela Castro & José Maria & Paulo Júlio, 2013. "Fiscal Multipliers in a Small Euro Area Economy: How Big Can They Get in Crisis Times?," EcoMod2013 5307, EcoMod.
    18. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2017. "Taxation and consumption: evidence from a representative survey of the German population," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(53), pages 5477-5490, November.
    19. Valerie A. Ramey, 2019. "Ten Years after the Financial Crisis: What Have We Learned from the Renaissance in Fiscal Research?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 89-114, Spring.
    20. Domenico Ferraro & Giuseppe Fiori, 2020. "The Aging of the Baby Boomers: Demographics and Propagation of Tax Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 167-193, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax shocks; Tax multiplier; Taxation; Fiscal policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - 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:cpr:ceprdp:8252. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.