Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:41:25.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Taxes and Economic Growth

from Part IV - The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2021

John W. Diamond
Affiliation:
Rice University, Houston
George R. Zodrow
Affiliation:
Rice University, Houston
Get access

Summary

The 2017 US tax reform cut tax rates for C-corporations, expanded business equipment expensing, and cut marginal individual income tax rates. When those provisions are treated as permanent, a neoclassical model implies that their effects are that output per worker rises in the long run by around 5 percent for C-corporations, 3 percent for pass-through businesses, and 4 percent for the overall economy. Over ten years, the estimated boost to the growth rate of per capita GDP is about 0.2 percentage points a year. The cut in individual marginal income tax rates has a larger estimated short-run effect on economic growth, 0.9 percentage points per year for 2018–19. A measure of the tax wedge between C-corporate and pass-through forms fell from 60 percent in 1960 to 37 percent in 1986, to 22 percent in 1988, to 16 percent in 2017, and to 0 in 2018. The cumulative estimated positive effect on productivity is 16 percent. At the same time, there has been a negative trend in the C-corporate share of economic activity, reflecting shifts toward sectors that benefit less from C-corporate legal form and the enhanced attractiveness of pass-through alternatives, notably LLC-type partnerships.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barro, Robert J., 2015. “Convergence and Modernisation.Economic Journal 125 (585), 911–42.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J., and Furman, Jason, 2018. “Macroeconomic Effects of the 2017 Tax Reform.Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 49 (1) Spring, 257345.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J., and Redlick, Charles J., 2011. “Macroeconomic Effects from Government Purchases and Taxes.Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (1), 51102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barro, Robert J., and Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 2004. Economic Growth. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J., and Ursúa, José F, 2008. “Macroeconomic Crises since 1870.Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 39 (1) Spring, 255350.Google Scholar
Blanchard, Olivier J., 1985. “Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons.Journal of Political Economy 93 (2), 223–47.Google Scholar
Goolsbee, Austan, 1998. “Taxes, Organizational Form, and the Deadweight Loss of the Corporate Income Tax.Journal of Public Economics 69 (1), 143–52.Google Scholar
Hall, Robert E., and Jorgenson, Dale W., 1967. “Tax Policy and Investment Behavior.American Economic Review 57 (3), 391414.Google Scholar
Keynes, John Maynard, 1936. The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money. Macmillan and Co., London, UK.Google Scholar
King, Mervyn A., and Fullerton, Don, 1984. The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and West Germany. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie-Mason, Jeffrey K., and Gordon, Roger H., 1997. “How Much Do Taxes Discourage Incorporation?Journal of Finance 52 (2), 477505.Google Scholar
Mertens, Karel, and Montiel Olea, José L, 2018. “Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence.Quarterly Journal of Economics 133 (4), 1803–84.Google Scholar
Prisinzano, Richard, and Pearce, James, 2018. “Tax-Based Switching of Business Income.” PWBM Working Paper W2018-2. Penn-Wharton Budget Model, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×