Measuring the Tax Burden on Capital and Labor (CESifo Seminar Series)

The highly complicated nature of modern tax codes mean economists and policy makers need simplified summary measures to understand how taxes affect the economy. Studies of what is known as the effective tax rate - that is, a measurement of the net amount of tax levied on certain economic activities - provide this sort of descriptive summary. With these estimates of effective tax rates, economists can look for evidence of how taxes affect economic behaviour and policy makers can evaluate whether the net outcome of all the different tax laws is in accord with their intentions.

Globalisation, with its accompanying international mobility of capital and labor, has created a new use for estimates of the effective tax rate as policy makers seek to compare tax burdens in one country with those in another.