Many researchers have recommended to increase public debt in the aftermath of the fi nancial crisis in order to relax borrowing constraints for private households. This advice is based on the common assumption that borrowing conditions of private agents are exogenous to public policy. We study...

In this paper, we empirically document a link between tax changes and financial market conditions. Using the Romer and Romer (2010) narrative record of exogenous federal tax liability changes for the US, we show that an increase in taxes leads to higher risk premia for corporate bonds issued by...