There is no consensus on how strongly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has stimulated U.S. private fixed investment. Some argue that the business tax provisions spurred investment by cutting the cost of capital. Others see the TCJA primarily as a windfall for shareholders. We find that U.S....

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) sharply reduced effective corporate income tax rates on equity-financed US investment. This paper examines the reform’s impact on US inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) and investment in property, plant and equipment (PPE) by foreign-owned US...

Structural transformation has resulted in an increasing share of services in aggregate value-added in advanced and developing countries across the world. We analyze the impact of this shift into services on countries' efficiency in collecting the value-added tax (VAT). The analysis is based on...

The excessive complexity and burden of the Brazilian tax system, riddled by cumulative indirect taxes and heavy payroll contributions, have led to an accumulation of fiscal incentives aimed at reducing its burden on taxpayers and productive activities. Federal and subnational tax expenditures...

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to assess the effects oftemporary business tax cuts. First, the analysis extends the Ricardian equivalence result toan environment with production and establishes that a temporary tax cut financed by afuture tax-increase has no real effect...

This paper assesses the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), from the perspective of both the U.S. itself and the wider world. The reform has many positive aspects including steps to broaden the base of, and reduce marginal rates under, the personal income tax (PIT), reduce distortions to...

This paper evaluates elements of a comprehensive reform of the Italian tax system. Reform options are guided by the principles of reducing complexity, broadening the tax base, and lowering marginal tax rates, especially the tax burden on labor income. The revenue and distributional implications...

Does the design of a tax matter for growth? Assembling a novel dataset for 30 OECD countriesover the 1970-2016 period, this paper examines whether the value added tax (VAT) may havedifferent effects on long-run growth depending on whether it is raised through the standard rateor through...

Recent financial crises including the ongoing one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have consistently drawn attention to the need to strengthen the quality of public debt management in emerging markets and developing countries. Deeper and more efficient domestic government debt markets-being, a...

Does the reliance on diversified tax structure enhance resilience to fiscal risks? This paper gives an answer to this question by proposing a new cross-country tax revenue diversification index (RDI). The RDI builds on the Theil index, and unlike the few existing tax diversification indices,...