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The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States

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  • Ravn, Morten
  • Mertens, Karel
Abstract
This paper estimates the dynamic effects of changes in taxes in the United States. We distinguish between the effects of changes in personal and corporate income taxes using a new narrative account of federal tax liability changes in these two tax components. We develop an estimator in which narratively identified tax changes are used as proxies for structural tax shocks and apply it to quarterly post WWII US data. We find that short run output effects of tax shocks are large and that it is important to distinguish between different types of taxes when considering their impact on the labor market and the major expenditure components.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravn, Morten & Mertens, Karel, 2011. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 8554, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8554
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; Measurement error; Narrative identification; Tax changes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General

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