What factors influence state economic growth? This article uses annual state (and local) data for the years 1947 through 1997 for the forty-eight contiguous states to estimate the effects of a large number of factors, including taxation and expenditure policies, on state economic growth. A...

In this paper, we determine how tax law and income distribution changes have separately contributed to the changes in tax progressivity over time, and also how a specific pre-tax distribution of income affects the equalizing ability of a given tax change. We use information from the Current...

What determines government spending in South Africa? The paper estimates the determinants of real per capita government spending in the Republic of South Africa using annual data for the period 1960-2007, a tumultuous period during which South Africa experienced a variety of internally imposed...

This paper uses information on enterprise expenditures on social services in the Russian Federation in combination with local government budget information in the relevant jurisdictions to measure the potential impact on local government budgets of their assumption of social service...

Policymakers have directed much effort towards reducing or eliminating the so-called "marriage penalty" present in the U.S. individual income tax. However, because the marriage penalty is frequently misunderstood, many suggested remedies do little to reduce the penalty, and in some cases even...

Strategies for reducing tax evasion include stricter enforcement, but taxpayer responses to increased enforcement are difficult to measure with field data. We use experimental methods to examine individual compliance responses to advance information on audit probability and productivity. Our...

Uses data from laboratory experiments to estimate individual responses to tax, penalty, and audit rate changes, as well as to changes in government expenditures. The empirical results confirm some (although not all) theoretical predictions, and compare qualititatively with other empirical work

Uses household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to calculate the real value of the so-called "marriage tax" or "marriage subsidy" in the federal individual income tax over the period 1967- to 1994. Discusses different ways the marriage tax can be calculated and discusses changes that...