Fiscal Studies最新文献

In this paper, we study the effects of an interest barrier (IB) that was introduced in Finland in 2014 to restrict the profit-shifting opportunities of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We employ data from the Orbis database on Finnish, Swedish and Danish MNEs and a difference-in-differences methodology, where Swedish and Danish MNEs serve as a control group. We examine the effects of the IB on financial expenses, debt levels and overall economic activity of firms. We find that Finnish MNEs responded to the IB by decreasing their financial expenses. We also find that the most affected firms decreased their debt levels due to the reform. Our results also suggest that the financial expense response is followed by a change in the use of transfer pricing as a method to shift profits between tax jurisdictions. We do not find evidence of total output changes among treated firms, which suggests that the IB did not affect the real activity of the treated MNEs.

This research studies the effects of a value added tax (VAT) reform that raised the rate from 11 to 16 per cent at localities close to international borders in Mexico. Using difference-in-differences, we find that the VAT hike increased prices by one-third the size of the full-passthrough counterfactual. Moreover, we find that workers absorbed part of the VAT hike, as the reform had a negative effect on workers’ compensation. Informality, competition across the border, worker mobility and earnings level drive the effects we find.

We study the effect of the largest childcare subsidy scheme in Ireland, a country where, historically, mothers provided childcare and did not participate on the labour market. In 2019, the cost of full-time centre-based childcare was among the most expensive in the OECD. At the end of 2019, a means-tested childcare subsidy was introduced to improve childcare affordability, but nothing is known of the maternal labour supply effects. We model the joint decision of labour supply and childcare for lone and coupled mothers of children under six. Mothers are likely to respond to the introduction of childcare subsidies in 2019 by switching from informal childcare to formal childcare (12 percentage points), and by slightly increasing their participation in the labour market (0.5 percentage points). We simulate that recent (2023) reforms of the National Childcare Scheme, which increase the generosity and the scope of the subsidy, will increase mothers' participation by one further percentage point, but also substantially decrease the demand for informal childcare. Extending childcare subsidies to informal care (such as childminders and nannies) would decrease the demand for formal childcare and further increase maternal labour supply.

The COVID-19 vaccination campaign can be regarded as a public-sector success story. Given the shock caused by the pandemic, the highly visible and successful response of the public authorities in rolling out the vaccination might have elicited an increase in public trust. We test whether the vaccination process increased the marginal willingness to pay taxes (MWTP). Taking advantage of the different paths taken by the vaccination roll-out in Spain, we employ a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, complemented by an event study, to infer causality running from vaccination coverage to MWTP. We find an increase in MWTP caused by the good governance of the vaccination campaign.

Children are often a major beneficiary of social safety net programmes because they have higher rates of poverty. We review the evidence on whether, and to what extent, safety net spending via cash and in-kind benefits (nutrition, early childhood education, housing and health care) affects child health and well-being and, ultimately, children's income in adulthood. We also consider how recent changes to the safety net in the United States and the United Kingdom may affect child outcomes. We conclude that the safety net can and does help children who are growing up in poverty, with positive long-term gains, especially among the most disadvantaged. While there is some evidence that parents may change their behaviours in response to incentives to maintain eligibility for safety net programmes, these changes appear small and, on net, children appear to be better off as a result of these programmes. A comprehensive study of the impact of the generosity and structure of the safety net on child outcomes and intergenerational mobility remains for future research.

Over the last several decades, there have been historic shifts in the structure of cash transfer programmes in Western, developed countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. For all three of these countries, the turn of the 21^st century marked a shift away from unconditional cash transfer programmes, such as traditional cash welfare, towards an emphasis on benefits that encourage or require work. In this paper, I review the evidence on the impact of tax credits on child outcomes, focusing on what is known about child-oriented tax credits in the US (i.e. earned income tax credit and child tax credit), the UK (i.e. working families’ tax credit, child tax credit and working tax credit) and Canada (i.e. Canada child tax benefit, national child benefit and Canada child benefit). Overwhelmingly, the evidence from these three countries suggests that tax credits have positive impacts on children for a host of different outcomes, including infant birthweight, childhood health and achievement, educational attainment, wages, and poverty in adulthood. While there is a large, growing body of evidence on the impact of these tax credits on children, future work should further investigate the precise mechanisms through which tax credits affect child outcomes, the characteristics of children most affected by these credits, and the importance of how frequently the credits are distributed.

Sales tax has been a popular revenue source for local governments in 38 US states. In this fiscal climate, both horizontal and vertical tax competition are frequently observed. Local governments are concerned about adverse impacts thereof on their revenue as mobile shoppers react to tax rate changes by purchasing in lower-tax jurisdictions. So far, few studies have accounted for potential endogeneity in the behavioural patterns of leaders versus followers in setting local sales tax policy. Using a 40-year panel dataset from Texas, this study identifies leader municipalities in changing sales tax rates and examines how municipalities asymmetrically respond to multi-tiered rate changes. The findings depict a crowding-out story in vertical tax competition and reveal crowding-in effects in horizontal competition, with leader municipalities immune to both effects.

In several countries, a traditional public exam system is the way to secure a job in the civil service. In this setting, candidates have to take and pass exams that involve studying large quantities of material, and this takes up a large amount of time. Candidates who are working while preparing for public exams may find it difficult to find time for both tasks. Thus, they might experience increased stress/anxiety related to the high stakes nature of the civil service recruitment process. In this paper, we investigate the impact of new openings for civil service positions on sickness absences. Using a unique administrative data set on the universe of sickness absences and civil service positions offered in Spain from 2009 to 2015, we find a significant increase in health-related absences several months before the exam date. In particular, this effect is stronger for individuals working in the educational sector as well as for calls offering a large number of positions. An important element is that our results are mostly driven by stress-related absences. To corroborate the health-related origins of our results, we use data on visits to general practitioners and specialists and show a significant deterioration in the health of public-sector workers. Our results are important from a policy perspective as they highlight the existence of important negative consequences of the civil service recruitment process that have been previously overlooked.

In this paper, we discuss the evolution of inequality in Greece from 2004 to 2021 in light of the Greek debt crisis that led to a sharp drop in gross domestic product per capita between 2008 and 2013. While aggregate measures of income inequality, such as the Gini coefficient, suggest a marginal improvement, domestic perceptions of social fairness remain bleak. To delve deeper into this paradox, we explore additional aggregate and distributional aspects of Greece's social landscape during this period. Our analysis reveals several contributing factors: a compression of earnings, benefits and pensions; a sharp increase in social exclusion; and high inequality in access to basic public services and housing. These factors go beyond what headline inequality indices indicate, illustrating how the sovereign debt crisis and subsequent austerity measures have affected individuals differently based on their socio-economic background, while also reducing overall welfare across the Greek population. Moreover, chronic institutional inefficiencies and widening disparities in access to services and housing significantly influence perceptions of inequality and contribute negatively to the country's social cohesion.

This paper presents stylised facts on the labour supply and income inequality of individuals aged 25–55, drawn from the 1989–2020 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. Over the sample period, earnings inequality has increased considerably although the gap is smaller when considered in terms of household disposable income. We investigate the possible drivers of this increase using administrative data on employees. The evidence suggests that labour market reforms implemented since the start of the 1990s are the most plausible explanation for this growth in earnings inequality. Comparison between earnings and disposable income suggests that both government and households are important for reducing inequalities.