IMF-令人不快的惊喜？选举与税务新闻冲击（英）-2023.6-35页_1mb

Summary of "Unpleasant Surprises? Elections and Tax News Shocks"

Background

• The paper examines how electoral cycles influence the implementation of tax policy changes, affecting the likelihood of "tax news shocks"—unanticipated changes that can impact macroeconomic outcomes.
• Using monthly data from 22 advanced economies and emerging markets (1990-2018), the study analyzes timing of announcements and implementations.

Key Findings

• Before Elections: Implementation lags for tax policy changes are longer, reducing the probability of tax news shocks by approximately 2.6 percentage points monthly on average. This is attributed to governments delaying unpopular or anticipated changes to maintain elector support.
• After Elections: Implementation lags shorten significantly, increasing the frequency of tax news shocks by about 3.0 percentage points monthly. Newly elected governments may act quickly to implement changes using their political capital.
• The patterns hold for both tax increases and decreases, and are robust across different tax types (e.g., consumption vs. income taxes, base vs. rate changes), country groups (advanced vs. emerging markets), and definitions of tax news shocks.
• Results are insensitive to controlling for economic factors like output, inflation, and institutional capacity.

Implications

• Tax news shocks, driven by electoral timing, can amplify policy uncertainty and have significant macroeconomic effects.
• Policy recommendations include designing mechanisms to enhance fiscal transparency and reduce opportunistic behavior, potentially improving credibility and effectiveness in tax policy.

Conclusion

• Elections shape the implementation pace of tax policies, creating cycles of surprises with potential welfare implications.
• Further research should explore institutional differences that moderate these effects.