The political business cycle of tax reforms
利用22个民主国家1988-2014年税收改革公告的月度数据，检验了税收改革是否存在政治经济周期，发现改革更可能在选举后而非选举前宣布，支持能力型而非传统策略型政治经济周期。
Abstract A political business cycle (PBC), with governments adjusting and timing economic policy for electoral gains, has long been hypothesized. A lack of data has so far limited testing of this phenomenon for government policies as opposed to fiscal outcomes such as tax revenue or government deficit, especially at the national level. We use new monthly data on tax reform announcements for a set of 22 democracies, 1988–2014, to test the PBC hypothesis for taxation. In addition to the traditional electoral strategy formulation of the PBC, we also put forward and test a capacity version of the PBC. We find evidence for the capacity version but not the traditional version of the PBC: tax reforms are less likely to be announced before elections and more likely after elections, independently of whether they are increases or decreases. Our evidence suggests that while a PBC exists, it may be less driven by strategic electioneering and more innocuous than previously assumed.