This paper investigates the cyclical properties of the average effective tax rate in 26 OECD countries over 1965-2003 in order to test the validity of three theories of fiscal policy: (i) the standard Keynesian theory which recommends that tax policy should be counter-cyclical, (ii) the Tax...

This paper investigates the effects of economic size and trade openness on tax design in the OECD. Using data for thirty OECD countries over the 1965-2007 period, we test the recently proposed Hines-Summers [2009] Hypothesis, according to which the smaller the size and the greater the openness...

The aim of this paper is to assess the short and medium-term impact of debt crises on GDP. Using an unbalanced panel of 154 countries from 1970 to 2008, the paper shows that debt crises produce significant and long-lasting output losses, reducing output by about 10 percent after 8 years. The...

We analyse how fiscal decentralization affects the volatility of government consumption extending the existing literature that mainly deals with the effects of the former on government size. Using data for 97 developed and developing countries from 1971 to 2010, we find that a higher degree of...