This paper investigates the cyclical properties of the average effective tax rate in 26 OECD countries over 1965-2003 in order to test the validity of three theories of fiscal policy: (i) the standard Keynesian theory which recommends that tax policy should be counter-cyclical, (ii) the Tax...

This paper investigates the effects of economic size and trade openness on tax design in the OECD. Using data for thirty OECD countries over the 1965-2007 period, we test the recently proposed Hines-Summers [2009] Hypothesis, according to which the smaller the size and the greater the openness...

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between business cycle volatility and country size using quarterly data for a sample of OECD countries over 1960-2000. The results suggest very strongly that the relationship between country size and business cycle volatility is...