Political tax cycles: Cyclicality of the tax burden in election periods

Abstract

The article discusses changes in the tax burden in election and post-election years in countries with different levels of economic and political development. The study uses the data on 121 countries for the period between 1991 and 2019 to test two hypotheses: 1) in election years, governments tend to boost spending while in post-election years government expenditures decline, which determines a similar dynamic of the tax burden; 2) in election years the tax burden decreases and in post-election years it either increases or decreases at a slower rate than in election periods. Methodologically, the study relies on multi-factor regression analysis of panel data. As a result, the first hypothesis is confirmed for high-income countries where the governments increase their spending to ensure the incumbent’s re-election and cut their expenditures after the election. In developed countries, in election years, the government’s spending was 0.4% higher than in other periods. In developed countries, governments were motivated to raise rather than reduce the tax burden in order to compensate for their increased expenditures. No common pattern of declining tax burden in election periods was detected for all observed countries, for groups of countries by income level (high-income, middle- or low-income) or for groups of countries by political regime type (democratic and non-democratic– hybrid or authoritarian). However, the analysis of the annual data on taxes has shown that the decline in the tax burden can occur in countries with developing economic and political systems as was the case with Armenia, Russia and Ukraine in 1992–2019. In general, the findings demonstrate that the governments are more prone to using monetary and fiscal rather than tax instruments in election periods.