Who bears labour taxes and social contributions?A meta-analysis approach
- Melguizo Esteso, Ángel
- José Manuel González-Páramo
ISSN: 1869-4195
Ano de publicación: 2013
Volume: 4
Número: 3
Páxinas: 247-271
Tipo: Artigo
Outras publicacións en: SERIEs : Journal of the Spanish Economic Association
Obxectivos de Desenvolvemento Sustentable
Resumo
In this paper we apply the meta-regression technique to survey the empirical literature on the economic incidence of labour taxes and social security contributions. In particular,we focus on the effects of taxation onwages to test the conventional view that employees bear the burden due to lower net wages. Based on 52 empirical papers, we find that economic institutions, the tax wedge definition, and the temporal focus significantly affect the results. In the long run, workers bear between two thirds of the tax burden in Continental and Anglo-Saxon economies, and nearly 90 % in the Nordic economies. However, despite the numerous set of controlling variables, a significant part of the variability of the empirical literature remains unexplained.