Democratic Choice and Taxation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

by Walter Hettich , Stanley L. Winer

• ISBN13: 9780521021807
• ISBN10: 0521021804
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This work examines tax policies and tax systems as they arise from democratic choices, set against the background of a market economy. Professors Hettich and Winer find that democratic institutions yield complex tax systems with features that follow a varied but predictable pattern. In developing their analysis, the authors use formal modelling of voting behavior, emphasizing recent advances in the theory of probabilistic voting. This book differs from the available tax literature by relating fiscal choices directly to voting and by examining tax systems in democratic countries from a variety of perspectives. While the authors primarily focus on explaining observed features of tax systems, they also devote considerable space to the discussion of the welfare and efficiency effects of taxation in the presence of collective choice, and to a review of other models and of the related literature. In addition, they use computational general equilibrium analysis and statistical research on national and state governments in the US and Canada to link theory to empirical data.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
PART ONE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Models of Political Economy and the Study of Taxation	11	(31)
Foundations of Democratic Tax Systems	42	(19)
Tax Structure in Equilibrium: A More Formal Model	61	(38)
PART TWO: COLLECTIVE CHOICE AND THE NORMATIVE ANALYSIS OF TAXATION
An Assessment of Normative Tax Theory	99	(22)
Welfare, Politics, and Taxation	121	(32)
PART THREE: APPLIED GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS
Tax Policy in a Computable Model of Economic and Political Equilibrium	153	(42)
PART FOUR: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF TAX STRUCTURE
Introduction to Statistical Research	195	(17)
Income Taxation and Special Provisions: Evidence from U.S. States	212	(25)
Debt and Tariffs: The Evolution of the Canadian Revenue System	237	(28)
PART FIVE: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND TAXATION
Tax Systems in Congressional and Parliamentary Countries	265	(19)
Conclusion	284	(11)
Bibliography	295	(26)
Name Index	321	(4)
Subject Index	325