The paper assesses, using seven structural models used heavily by policymaking institutions, the effectiveness of temporary fiscal stimulus. Models can, more easily than empirical studies, account for differences between fiscal instruments, for differences between structural characteristics of...

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

One difficulty confronting Harberger’s celebrated model of the corporate income tax is how to treat the noncorporate production in primarily corporate sectors and corporate production in primarily noncorporate sectors. This paper presents a two-good model with corporate and noncorporate...

This paper examines the intertemporal effect of corporate income taxation on the investment behavior of a firm that faces imperfect capital markets. It shows that when capital markets are imperfect, the optimizing firm goes through different phases of growth. In this dynamic setting, the effect...

Businesses which seek the location that offers the highest profitability are likely to consider tax incentives and the level of government services available. However, once a business commits itself to a locality, high moving costs render it vulnerable to future tax increases or denial of...

This paper assesses a possible explanation for the global downward trend in top personal income tax rates over the last decades: globalization and the related tax evasion and avoidance opportunities could have raised elasticities of taxable income, which would imply lower optimal tax rates. The...

This paper reviews conceptual linkages between taxation and unemployment, available empirical evidence and country policies that may have a bearing on these linkages in the OECD and in a sample of developing and transitional economies, Fund policy advice on these issues, and tax policy options...

This paper investigates the role of tax incentives towards debt finance in the buildup of leverage in the nonfinancial corporate (NFC) sector, using a large firm-level dataset. We find that so-called debt bias is a significant driver of leverage, for both small and medium-sized enterprises and...

Formula apportionment as a way to attribute taxable profits of multinationals across jurisdictions is receiving increased attention. This paper reviews existing literature and discusses experiences in selective federal states to evaluate the economic properties of formula apportionment relative...

This paper examines the impact of thin capitalization rules that limit the tax deductibility of interest on the capital structure of the foreign affiliates of US multinationals. We construct a new data set on thin capitalization rules in 54 countries for the period 1982-2004. Using confidential...