Unpleasant Surprises? Elections and Tax News Shocks

Unanticipated changes in tax policy are likely to have different macroeconomic effects compared to anticipated changes due to several mechanisms, including fiscal foresight and policy uncertainty. It is therefore important to understand what drives such policy surprises. We explore the nature of una...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: David, Antonio
Other Authors: Sever, Can
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2023
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 03706nmm a2200733 u 4500
001 EB002176251
003 EBX01000000000000001314028
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 231004 ||| eng
020 |a 9798400244919 
100 1 |a David, Antonio 
245 0 0 |a Unpleasant Surprises? Elections and Tax News Shocks  |c Antonio David, Can Sever 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2023 
300 |a 35 pages 
653 |a Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy 
653 |a Finance 
653 |a Probit models 
653 |a Stabilization 
653 |a Public finance & taxation 
653 |a Taxes 
653 |a Proportions 
653 |a Fiscal Policy 
653 |a Economics of specific sectors 
653 |a Currency crises 
653 |a Business Taxes and Subsidies 
653 |a Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems 
653 |a Income tax systems 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Econometrics 
653 |a Econometrics & economic statistics 
653 |a Taxation 
653 |a Spendings tax 
653 |a Income tax 
653 |a Economic & financial crises & disasters 
653 |a Treasury Policy 
653 |a Econometric analysis 
653 |a Economics: General 
653 |a Corporations; Taxation 
653 |a Informal sector; Economics 
653 |a General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) 
653 |a Fiscal policy 
653 |a Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models 
653 |a Corporate income tax 
653 |a Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation 
653 |a Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General 
653 |a Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior 
653 |a Econometric models 
653 |a Consumption taxes 
653 |a Corporate Taxation 
653 |a Corporate & business tax 
653 |a Institutions and the Macroeconomy 
653 |a Public Finance 
653 |a Finance: General 
653 |a Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: General 
653 |a Discrete Regressors 
700 1 |a Sever, Can 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b IMF  |a International Monetary Fund 
490 0 |a IMF Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.5089/9798400244919.001 
856 4 0 |u https://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2023/139/001.2023.issue-139-en.xml?cid=534334-com-dsp-marc  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a Unanticipated changes in tax policy are likely to have different macroeconomic effects compared to anticipated changes due to several mechanisms, including fiscal foresight and policy uncertainty. It is therefore important to understand what drives such policy surprises. We explore the nature of unanticipated tax policy changes by focusing on a political economy determinant of those events, namely the timing of elections. Using monthly data for 22 advanced economies and emerging markets over the period 1990-2018, we show that implementation lags tend to be significantly longer for tax policy change announcements that are made during the pre-election periods, thereby leading to a lower likelihood of “tax news shocks”. We also find that implementation lags become much shorter for tax policy changes that are announced in the aftermath of elections, generating more frequent tax news shocks. This pattern remains similar for different tax measures or types of taxes. The findings are robust to a number of checks, including alternative definitions of tax news shocks, or to controlling for various economic and institutional factors