The Influence of Globalization on Taxes and Social Policy – an Empirical Analysis for OECD Countries

Axel Dreher ()

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: Using panel regression for the period 1970-2000 the paper analyzes whether globalization has influenced the OECD countries’ social and overall spending as well as their tax rates on labor, consumption and capital. Accounting for potential endogeneity of the regressors, the results show that globalization (measured by an index covering 23 variables) did not generally decrease the leeway for independent economic policy. Globalization even increased implicit tax rates on capital (as calculated by Carey and Rabesona 2002) – a result that is mainly driven by economic integration. However, there seems to be competition over tax rates on capital when data based on legislation as suggested by Devereux and Griffith (2003) is employed. Depending on the method of estimation, increasing social integration also influences policies, while political integration does not matter for economic policy in most specifications.

Keywords: globalization; economic policy; government expenditure; social spending; implicit tax rates; dynamic panel; tax competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H7 H87 C23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-pbe
Date: 2003-10-16, Revised 2005-01-02
Note: Type of Document - . University of Exeter Discussion Paper in Economics
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Related works:
Journal Article: The influence of globalization on taxes and social policy: An empirical analysis for OECD countries (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0310002

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