We study the effect of tax policy on stock market returns in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom using GARCH models and a unique daily dataset of legislative tax changes during the period 1 December 1978 to 31 January 2018. We find that days of discretionary tax legislation during...

Announcing a large fiscal stimulus may signal the government’s pessimism about the severity of a recession to the private sector, impairing the stabilizing effects of the policy. Using a theoretical model, we show that these signaling effects occur when the stimulus exceeds expectations and...