Capital Taxation, Development, and Globalization: Evidence from a Macro-Historical Database
This paper builds and analyzes a new global macro-historical database of effective tax rates on capital and labor in 154 countries. We establish a new stylized fact: while effective capital tax rates fell in developed countries between 1965 and 2018, they rose in developing countries since 1990. Multiple research designs at the country, sector and firm-level suggest that trade openness contributed to this rise, by increasing the share of output produced in corporations and larger firms, where effective capital taxation is higher. In contrast to a common view, globalization appears in many countries to have supported governments’ ability to tax capital.
-
-
Copy CitationPierre Bachas, Matthew H. Fisher-Post, Anders Jensen, and Gabriel Zucman, "Capital Taxation, Development, and Globalization: Evidence from a Macro-Historical Database," NBER Working Paper 29819 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3386/w29819.
-
-
More from the NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
