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Several empirical papers have studied the effect of government size, typically measured as government expenditures, on economic growth. There is no consensus on the direction of this impact, even though more recent studies tend to find a negative relationship between the general level of government expenditures and economic growth. This negative relationship is explained by the distortions that raising tax revenues cause on economic activities. There are, however, several ways to raise tax revenues that likely have different distortionary effects and, hence, may impact economic growth differently. This paper analyses how taxation of income influences economic growth. More precisely we study how statutory tax rates on corporate and personal income affect economic growth by using panel data from 1975 till 2010 for 25 rich OECD countries. We find that both taxation of corporate and personal income negatively influence economic growth. The correlation between corporate income taxation and economic growth is more robust, however.

This paper uses panel data on bilateral FDI flows in the European Union to empirically analyze the impact of labor and corporate taxations on FDI decisions. While the effect of corporate taxes on FDI is well documented, the impact of labor taxes on FDI has been neglected. This is surprising since labor taxation may influence FDI as well. The reason for this is that taxation of labor affects the production cost and the ability to attract and retain productive labor and ultimately the investment return. By employing a Heckman two-step estimation model, which controls for possible sample selection bias due to many zero bilateral observations, it is found that labor taxes do influence FDI decisions. The effect is significant both statistically and economically, although the magnitude is smaller than for corporate tax.

We empirically analyze the impact of corporate tax rates and agglomeration economies on FDI using panel data on bilateral FDI flows and stocks in the enlarged European Union. The novelty of the paper is that it explicitly deals with agglomeration forces and how these may explain differences in tax policies between new and old member countries. The empirical analysis closely follows the implicit underlying model where the foreign direct investment decision is seen as a two-step procedure that entails: 1) whether or not to invest; and 2) the amount of FDI to invest. Using recent data on corporate tax rates for all 27 EU member countries from 1995-2006, we find that there are large differences in the determinants of FDI going to the EU15 and new member countries. While tax differentials mainly seem to influence FDI flows to new members, agglomeration economies appear to play a somewhat more important role for the amount of investment made within the EU15. In addition, significant differences are found between the determinants of the extensive and intensive margins of the FDI decision.

We empirically analyze the impact of corporate tax rates and agglomeration economies on FDI using panel data on bilateral FDI flows and stocks in the enlarged European Union. The novelty of the paper is that it explicitly deals with agglomeration forces and how these may explain differences in tax policies between new and old member countries. The empirical analysis closely follows the implicit underlying model where the foreign direct investment decision is seen as a two-step procedure that entails: 1) whether or not to invest; and 2) the amount of FDI to invest. Using recent data on corporate tax rates for all 27 EU member countries from 1995-2006, we find that there are large differences in the determinants of FDI going to the EU15 and new member countries. While tax differentials mainly seem to influence FDI flows to new members, agglomeration economies appear to play a somewhat more important role for the amount of investment made within the EU15. In addition, significant differences are found between the determinants of the extensive and intensive margins of the FDI decision.

The voluminous tax competition literature suggests that increased economic integration leads to reduced tax rates and suboptimal levels of government spending as countries compete for mobile factors of production. Integration may influence not only the size of the government but also the structure of public spending. Comprehensive studies analyzing the effect of integration on the overall structure of government spending are rare, however. This article fills this void by providing an empirical analysis of the effects of economic integration on the overall structure of public spending in a number of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries using panel data on the different government spending components for the period 1970 to 2002. The authors find that integration negatively influences government consumption and investment but that there is no empirical evidence that transfers are positively or negatively affected by integration, as suggested by the compensation and efficiency views, respectively.

Economists and political scientists have long been interested in factors that affect the statutory tax rate on businesses set by federal governments. In this study, we examine the impact of political and economic factors on several measures of tax rates and tax incentives offered across 19 developed countries for the years 1979 through 2005. Our results indicate that while economic conditions such as openness, strategic interaction, budget constraints, economic downturns and an aging population all influence the rate of tax set by governments, the political structure of the federal government has a significant impact in the form of economic stimulus given. Importantly, our results suggest that different economic and political structures affect the level of incentives offered beyond those factors that affect the level of tax rates. These results are relevant to the current tax debate facing many governments as they consider implementing new policies to attract foreign direct investment and retain and grow domestic business. The impact of the political structure on the ability to enact legislation is significant after controlling for economic factors. This indicates that as the marketplace continues to become more international, it will become increasingly important for governments to find opportunities to work within their systems to enact legislation that enables their business community to compete internationally.