Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 The real world of tax policy
- 2 Federal tax reform
- 3 Federalism and subfederal taxes
- 4 Principles, politics, and the professors
- Public finance in theory and practice
- On the use of ‘distribution tables’ in the tax policy process
- Taxation and economic growth
- Tax reform of the century – the Swedish experiment
- Measuring the impact of tax reform
- What is an ‘optimal’ tax system?
- How tax complexity and enforcement affect the equity and efficiency of the income tax
- Tax policy from a public choice perspective
- What is missed if we leave out collective choice in the analysis of taxation
- Public finance and public choice
- Professional opinions about tax policy: 1994 and 1934
- What can America learn from the British tax system?
- Peculiar institutions: a British perspective on tax policy in the United States
- Index
Measuring the impact of tax reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 The real world of tax policy
- 2 Federal tax reform
- 3 Federalism and subfederal taxes
- 4 Principles, politics, and the professors
- Public finance in theory and practice
- On the use of ‘distribution tables’ in the tax policy process
- Taxation and economic growth
- Tax reform of the century – the Swedish experiment
- Measuring the impact of tax reform
- What is an ‘optimal’ tax system?
- How tax complexity and enforcement affect the equity and efficiency of the income tax
- Tax policy from a public choice perspective
- What is missed if we leave out collective choice in the analysis of taxation
- Public finance and public choice
- Professional opinions about tax policy: 1994 and 1934
- What can America learn from the British tax system?
- Peculiar institutions: a British perspective on tax policy in the United States
- Index
Summary
Abstract - This paper considers why so many questions about the economic effects of tax reforms remain unanswered, and draws implications for how economics can be used to evaluate and design tax changes. Tax reforms have proven difficult to assess for a variety of reasons, all related to the nonexperimental nature of empirical economic analysis. Though this makes continued reliance on theoretical predictions necessary evaluations should distinguish clearly between theory and evidence. The paucity of evidence also militates against the enactment of major tax reforms, for dependence on such reforms limits our ability to adapt tax policy in response to new evidence.
INTRODUCTION
The inability of economic research to provide clear and precise information about the economic impacts of tax policies has long frustrated policymakers. Although not necessarily written with this as their primary objective, the other papers in this symposium by Agell, Englund, and Södersten and Engen and Skinner (hereafter AES and ES) illustrate why such information has proved so hard to uncover. In this brief paper, I will attempt to assess why so many questions remain unanswered and consider the implications for how economics can be used to evaluate tax reforms and how the reforms themselves should be structured.
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- Tax Policy in the Real World , pp. 353 - 362Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999