This paper calculates effective macro-economic tax rates for the 25 EU countries following the methodology developed in Mendoza, Razin, and Tesar (1994). The available Eurostat data allow to compute the tax wedge on consumption, labor and capital. We show that effective tax rates in the 10 new...

In recent years, government revenues in many EU countries experienced significant and erratic changes, which, a priori, could not be fully explained by macroeconomic developments or by discretionary fiscal policy measures. We investigate this issue by estimating "unexplained" changes in tax and...

This paper explores how discretionary fiscal policies on the revenue side of the government budget have reacted to economic fluctuations in European Union countries. For this purpose, it uses data on legislated revenue changes and structural indicators provided twice per year by National Central...

Die neuen Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union haben ihre nominalen Körperschaftsteuersätze vor ihrem Beitritt stark reduziert. Vielfach wurde befürchtet, dass die geringeren nominalen Steuersätze von restriktiveren Verlustverrechnungsmodalitäten begleitet werden. Dies könnte zu einem...

This paper provides a set of detailed estimated fiscal reaction functions for a panel of twenty industrialized countries, and it discusses commonalities and differences with regard to systematic fiscal policies across countries. In general, the countries in the panel adjust tax revenues strongly...

In a recent paper, Colombier (2009) uses a robust estimation technique and claims to find empirical evidence that government size has not been detrimental to growth for OECD countries during the 1970 to 2001 period, and that endogenous growth theory is not corroborated. We examine the robustness...

Today's world of everyday life is characterized by a double crisis. International financial markets are swinging dangerously causing the world's largest economic crisis since the 20 century. However, it unfortunately is not the only crisis facing the world today. In the world today are not only...