We show that, in many countries, tax compliance is volatile and markedly responds to fiscal policy. To explore the consequence of this novel stylized fact, we build a model of sovereign debt with limited commitment and imperfect tax enforcement. Fiscal policy persistently affects the size of the...

This paper studies equilibrium effects of fiscal policy within a dynamic general equilibrium model where tax evasion and underground activities are explicitly incorporated. There are three main results. (i) The underground sector mitigates the distortionary impact of fiscal policies, while...

Using bootstrap panel analysis, allowing for cross-country correlation, without the need of pre-testing for unit roots, we study the causality between government spending and revenue for the EU in the period 1960-2006. We find spend-and-tax causality for Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and...

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the...

The government influences the equilibrium size of hidden activity. Higher taxes give an incentive to evade. The provision of public services, social transfers and public employment may have offsetting effects on the underground economy. The budget constraint makes the relation between the shadow...

Macroeconomic models that omit the shadow economy systematically mis-forecast and mis-measure the effect of fiscal –in particular tax– policy on economic activity and tax revenue. We add an informal sector to the Bank of Greece DSGE model and use the actual package of fiscal consolidation...

We study the consequences of multinational tax avoidance on the structure of government tax revenues. To motivate our analysis, we show that countries with high revenue losses due to profit shifting have lower corporate tax revenues and rates and higher indirect tax revenues and rates. To...

We quantify the fiscal multipliers in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. We extend the benchmark Smets-Wouters (Smets and Wouters, 2007) New Keynesian model, allowing for credit-constrained households, the zero lower bound, government capital and distortionary...

The empirical literature using vector autoregressive models to assess the effects of fiscal policy shocks strongly disagrees on even the qualitative response of key macroeconomic variables to government spending and tax shocks. We provide new evidence for the U.S. over the period 1955-2006. We...

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...