Angelopoulos (2012) Flashcards
Empirical memorisation.
What is the research objective of Angelopoulos (2012)?
To determine whether cabinet ideology (partisan / non-partisan) impacts the structure of policies.
What is the main hypothesis of Angelopoulos (2012)?
There are 2 main hypotheses:
H1: Left-wing governments prefer to tax capital rather than labour.
H2: Left-wing governments prefer to tax income rather than consumption.
What are the findings of Angelopoulos (2012)?
Empirical findings support H1. Evidence particularly strong when income of the self-employed is treated as capital, rather than labour, income.
No evidence for H2. Their results, in fact, suggest Left-wing governments rasie consumption taxes.
Are the findings of Angelopoulos (2012) consistent with theory?
Their findings associated with H1, that Left-wing governments prefer taxing capital rather than labour, are.
Their findings for H2 go against the theory that Left-wing governments should prefer less consumption taxation and more income taxation.
Do the author(s) of Angelopoulos (2012) provide any interpretation to their findings?
They suggest that the findings for H2 go against theory because Left-wig governments attempt to take advantage of fiscal illusion via hidden effort and impose taxes in the production processes of goods. This way, the voter base fails to internalise the higher prices they see are associated with politician activity; thus they increase tax revenue while maintaining a perceived competency above 1.
What reason does Angelopoulos (2012) give for Left-wing governments preferring capital tax to labour tax in theory?
The majority of their constituencies voter-base is comprised of the working class. Therefore they avoid taxing labour as to maintain a perceived competency above 1.
What reason does Angelopoulos (2012) give for Left-wing governments preferring income tax to consumption tax in theory?
Taxing consumption is a form of regressive taxation as it eats away at a larger portion of poor income than rich income. Therefore, progressive taxation with more weight on higher incomes is preferred.
Describe the econometric model used in Angelopoulos (2012).
Dependent variables:
D1: the ratio of labour tax to capital tax
D2: consumption tax rates
Independent variables:
I1: A measure of government ideology ranging from 1 to 5. Higher values indicate more Left-wing.
What is expected from the regression tables in Angelopoulos (2012) concerning the ratio of labour to capital tax?
We expect negative and significant coefficients, suggesting as the government becomes more Left-wing labour tax decreases relative to capital tax.
We observe this.
What is expected from the regression tables in Angelopoulos (2012) concerning consumption taxes?
We expect a negative coefficient, suggesting that as the government becomes more Left-wing consumption taxes fall.
We do not observe this.
