Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/272954 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
EconPol Working Paper No. 71
Publisher: 
ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, Munich
Abstract: 
Research on many important questions on taxation is impeded by a lack of cross-nationally comparable data. We introduce a new dataset that includes quantitative harmonized indices of tax reforms based on qualitative information of about 900 Economic Surveys from the OECD and 37,000 tax-related news from the IBFD archives collected by the IMF (Amaglobeli et al., 2018). Our dataset provides indicators on tax reforms for tax rates and tax bases, along with detailed sub-indices for six types of taxes (23 countries, 1960-2014). Relating tax reforms to the timing of elections, we provide first empirical evidence on electoral cycles in tax reforms on the national level. Our results show that politicians postpone tax rate increases to after elections. Examining heterogeneity across tax types, we find that electoral cycles are particularly pronounced for value added tax rates and personal income tax rates.
Subjects: 
Tax reforms
tax systems
tax rates
tax bases
data set
electoral cycles
JEL: 
D72
H20
H25
C23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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