Political constraints and incentives are the true driver of tax reforms. This paper reviews the political economics literature on personal income tax systems and reforms to see how political mechanisms help explain tax reforms. We take some of the implications of these theories to the data using...

Political constraints and incentives are the true driver of tax reforms. This paper reviews the political economics literature on personal income tax systems and reforms to see how political mechanisms help explain tax reforms. We take some of the implications of these theories to the data using...

This paper examines the impact of thin capitalization rules that limit the tax deductibility of interest on the capital structure of the foreign affiliates of US multinationals. We construct a new data set on thin capitalization rules in 54 countries for the period 1982-2004. Using confidential...

Political constraints and incentives are the true driver of tax reforms. Thispaper reviews the political economics literature on personal income tax systems andreforms to see how political mechanisms help explain tax reforms. We take some ofthe implications of these theories to the data using...

This paper examines the impact of thin capitalization rules that limit the tax deductibility of interest on the capital structure of the foreign affiliates of US multinationals. We construct a new data set on thin capitalization rules in 54 countries for the period 1982-2004. Using confidential...

In Europe, declining corporate tax rates have come along with rising tax-to-GDP ratios. This paper explores to what extent income shifting from the personal to the corporate tax base can explain these diverging developments. We exploit a panel of European data on legal form of business to...

The current debate in corporate taxation is focusing on leveling the tax playing field within the European Union for companies operating across-countries. However, tax burdens could also vary with the size of companies within the same country, raising the question whether large companies pay...

There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an "optimal" tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax...