scholarly journals Fiscal performance of minority governments: New empirical evidence for OECD countries

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881986608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Potrafke
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Fiscal Deficits ◽  
Fiscal Performance ◽  
Opposition Parties

I use new data on central and general governments for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960–2015 (unbalanced panel) to examine fiscal performance under minority governments. The results do not suggest that minority governments had higher fiscal deficits and public expenditure than majority governments—corroborating many previous studies. An innovation of my study is to examine fiscal policies of minority governments that enjoy organized support of opposition parties. The results do not show that minority governments that enjoy organized support of opposition parties increased public expenditure to a larger extent than majority governments. If anything, fiscal deficits were somewhat higher under single-party minority governments with organized support of opposition parties than under majority governments especially. Minority and majority governments had quite similar fiscal performance in OECD countries.

scholarly journals THE SINGLE TAX PRINCIPLE AS A LIMIT TO DOUBLE NON-TAXATION? A BROAD PERSPECTIVE

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 389-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Zubimendi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Broad Perspective ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Tax Legislation ◽  
Single Tax ◽  
Equity Principle ◽  
International Tax

In recent years, double non-taxation phenomenon has gained some importance. This phenomenon means that income is not subject to tax anywhere. Based on a purported international tax regime, some academics have defended the existence of a single tax principle which prohibits double taxation as well as double non-taxation. From a political standpoint, States enjoy fiscal sovereignty in order to design the rules to accomplish their own fiscal policies. In the current economic context of globalization, countries compete with each other in order to attract foreign investment and capital. To achieve these goals, countries use fiscal instruments, such as public expenditure or taxes. Nevertheless, countries are different from each other and may have different goals in consideration of their preferences. There are countries that base their competitiveness on offering good public infrastructures, whereas other countries are focused on low taxation to attract foreign investment, and even there are other countries, due to their economic structure, able to secure good public infrastructures with low taxes. Therefore, a country is free and sovereign to “untax” the income over which it has tax powers. The question is whether there are limits to the tax sovereignty of countries so that they may prohibit certain forms of double non-taxation. These supranational limits might be identified in the structure of the international tax regime. These attributes of the international tax regime inform largely the tax legislation of the international community. Those principles are the interpersonal equity or ability-to-pay principle, the neutrality principle, and the justice in the allocation of the taxing powers or internation equity principle. Nevertheless, from a positivistic and public international law standpoint, these supranational principles do not bind countries to hold a minimum threshold of taxation.

Is There a Threshold Effect of Public Debt on Economic Growth?

2019 ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Seher Gulsah Topuz ◽  
Taner Sekmen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Linear Relationship ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
Threshold Effect ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regression Methods ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Panel Threshold Regression

In this chapter, the relationship between public debt and economic growth is examined for OECD countries. In order to determine this relationship, the data between 2002 and 2016 is analyzed using panel threshold regression methods. The findings of the study suggest that the relationship between public debt and economic growth is linear. The public debt threshold is estimated at 99.75% for OECD countries but it is statistically insignificant. While the public debt to GDP ratio is both below and above this threshold, the effect of public debt on economic growth is negative and statistically significant. There is no evidence of the existence of a non-linear relationship between public debt and economic growth. These findings are expected to guide policymakers in the implementation of fiscal policies.

The Built-In Flexibility of Income and Consumption Taxes in OECD Countries

2017 ◽  
pp. 162-170
Author(s):  
Binhan Elif Yılmaz ◽  
Sinan Ataer
Keyword(s):  
Income Elasticity ◽  
National Income ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Tax Revenues ◽  
Cyclical Fluctuations ◽  
Relative Change ◽  
Consumption Taxes ◽  
Automatic Stabilizers

Compatible with a variety of cyclical fluctuations in fiscal policy, is the automatic stabilising fiscal policies. There is a need to calculate the income elasticity of tax for relieving the effects of cyclical fluctuations. Income elasticity of tax, that is tax revenue have relative change, the ratio of the relative change in national income. This ratio must be bigger than 1 to label a tax system as elastic. If this ratio is bigger than 1, this situation also show the tax system has an automatic stabilizing feature. By that way, without any changes in tax structure, tax revenues increase in the deflation times and decrease in the inflation times. The automatically compensatory movement of tax revenues, generally referred to as “built-in flexibility”, has received increasing attention. The aim of this study is examining the existence of automatic stabilizers in the OECD countries by evaluating the income elasticity of income and consumption taxes and by making cross-countries comparatives.

scholarly journals Fiscal deficits and executive planning horizons

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Seiferling
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Fiscal Deficits ◽  
Term Limit ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fiscal Behavior ◽  
Planning Horizons

AbstractExecutive control of government is generally not a long-term job. In such cases, relatively short executive tenure should be expected to play an important role in determining the degree to which policymakers internalize the future costs associated with their current fiscal behavior. The effects of policymaker's expected planning horizons on macroeconomic outcomes, however, have been difficult to model outside of a fixed term limit context due to the unobserved likelihood of remaining in office, along with potential endogeneity problems where re-election campaigns can be enhanced with generous, deficit-financed expenditures in election years. From a globally representative sample of 79 countries over a 32-year period (1980–2012), this paper provides empirical evidence suggesting that incumbent governments who know that will not be in office in the following period with a probability of one, are found to generate significantly higher deficits in a linear discounting model, and are found to produce the least responsible fiscal outcomes where the likelihood of re-election is around fifty percent in quadratic discounting models.

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