The paper consists in the proceedings of the workshop organised by the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs held in Brussels on 18 October 2012. Against the background of severe consolidation needs in many EU Member States, the workshop addressed the macroeconomic impact and...

The proceedings gather together the views of academics, national policy-makers and international institutions on two topical issues of great policy-relevance at the current juncture, i.e. housing taxation and tax governance. The part on housing taxation touches upon different aspects of housing...

Against the background of recovering growth and remaining fiscal consolidation needs, reforming tax expenditures may offer a promising avenue to raise revenue and, at the same time, improve efficiency of the tax systems. The workshop, held by DG ECFIN on 23 October 2013, addressed the economic...

This paper investigates different methodologies for computing effective corporate tax rates. All methodologies present strengths and shortcomings, as well as different rankings of countries. One reason lies in the fact that different methodologies measure different things. This paper also...

Work-related tax incentives can have a significant effect on how much, if at all, certain individuals decide to work. This paper examines the fiscal impacts and associated welfare costs of reforms to such tax relief measures in five European countries, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Hungary...

(Papers presented at the 4th Annual Research Conference, 11-12 October 2007) This volume contains nine papers presented at the 4th DG ECFIN Annual Research Conference held in October, 2007 in Brussels on the theme: Growth and income distribution in an integrated Europe: Does EMU make a...

In this paper we discuss the role of tax and benefit systems in the context of the functioning of the labour markets and review recent progress made by EU Member States in reforming tax and benefit systems with a view to increasing economic incentives for higher employment and job creation.

This paper shows that, where the relative levels and general evolution of labour, capital and consumption tax rates are concerned, the conclusions drawn on the basis of ECFIN's rates are robust with respect to alternative definitions used by the OECD and by 'Structures of the Taxation Systems in...

Summary for non-specialistsA bias towards running deficits is an entrenched feature of fiscal policy making in most developed economies.Our paper examines whether this tendency is in any way associated with the personal distribution of income of a country. It takes inspiration from theoretical...

We study the joint dynamics of foreign capital flows and real activity during the recent boom-bust cycle of the Spanish economy, using a three-country New Keynesian model with credit-constrained households and firms, a construction sector and a government. We estimate the model using...