Building a tax state in the 21st century: Fiscal pressure, political regimes, and consumption taxation
研究了21世纪国家如何通过增值税扩大财政能力，发现财政压力会促使民主国家提高增值税率，但对专制国家影响较小，原因在于专制国家增值税增加的成本收益比更差。
How can states expand their fiscal capacity in the 21st century? I examine this question by looking at one of the most powerful contemporary fiscal tools at hand – the Value-Added Tax (VAT). Using a novel dataset on VAT rates worldwide since 2000, I argue that fiscal problem pressure can lead to an expanded usage of the VAT. However, this effect depends on the type of political regime. Whereas democracies tend to raise VAT in dire fiscal times, VAT rates in autocracies are more immune to fiscal pressure. Furthermore, I demonstrate that a worse cost-benefit ratio of VAT increases in autocracies can account for this variation. These findings call for a closer investigation of political regime dynamics and fiscal policy-making worldwide.