Suchergebnisse

Using a panel data set of effective tax rates that are directly comparable across Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and over time, we investigate the redistributive effect of labour, consumption and capital tax rates. We show that what matters from a redistributive standpoint is the tax mix rather than the tax rates in isolation from the rest. The results suggest that increasing the tax burden on labour or consumption relative to capital leads to higher income inequality. In contrast, greater reliance on labour taxes relative to consumption taxes improves income equality. This effect likely stems from the redistributive objectives of social security contributions incorporated in labour taxes.

We empirically test the hypothesis that a major in economics, management, business administration or accounting (for simplicity referred to as business/economics) leads to more-conservative (right-wing) political views. We use a panel dataset of individuals (repeated observations for the same individuals over time) living in the Netherlands, drawing data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences from 2008 through 2013. Our results show that when using a simple fixed effects model, which fully controls for individuals' time-invariant traits, any statistically and quantitatively significant effect of a major in business/economics on the political ideology of these individuals disappears. We posit that, at least in our sample, there is no evidence for a causal effect of a major in business/economics on individuals' political ideology.