The Determinants of Personal Income Tax Progressivity Around the Globe
نویسندگان
چکیده
This paper utilizes a novel database collected by the authors to document features of the progressivity of personal income tax systems across 209 countries for the years 1980-2009. We measure progressivity in several ways. First, we associate it with the increase in effective average (marginal) tax rates between a wage of zero and ten times the average wage in a country. Second, we consider the curvature of the tax schedule expressed as the difference between the effective average (marginal) tax schedule from a wage of zero to ten times the average wage and a linear average tax schedule and, alternatively, the difference between the effective average (marginal) tax schedule from the minimum positive taxable income, to ten times the average wage as opposed to a linear average tax schedule. Moreover, the paper assesses patterns regarding the conditional correlation of country-specific tax progressivity measures with a host of economic and political country-specific characteristics and find the labor supply elasticity and the income replacement rates for the unemployed to be key determinants of progressivity around the globe, in line with economic theory. JEL-classification: H0; H25; O23; O57
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