TAXATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Tax reforms are sometimes touted as having strong macroeconomic growth effects. Using three approaches, we consider the impact of a major tax reform—a 5 percentage point cut in marginal tax rates—on long-term growth rates. The first approach is to examine the historical record of the U.S. economy to evaluate whether tax cuts have been associated with economic growth. The second is to consider the evidence on taxation and growth for a large sample of countries. And finally, we use evidence from microlevel studies of labor supply investment demand, and productivity growth. Our results suggest modest effects, on the order of 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point differences in growth rates in response to a major tax reform. Nevertheless, even such small effects can have a large cumulative impact on living standards.

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