Abstract: We produce the largest cross-country dataset of corporate elasticity of taxable income estimates to analyze why these elasticities differ across countries. We develop a harmonized method and apply it to administrative firm-level tax data from 19 countries.  Exploiting bunching at zero taxable income, we estimate firm-level elasticities. Elasticities range from 0.075 in Ecuador to 1.91 in Canada, with an average of 0.6. To explain this variation, we pair our estimates with 95 country-level characteristics. A random forest model and Shapley decomposition show that tax policy, country fundamentals, and firm characteristics each explain about one-third of the cross-country variation in ETIs.

Abstract: We exploit a unique historical setting to study the roots of persistently weaker collective action in regions resettled after ethnic cleansing. After World War II, two million settlers relocated to the Czechoslovak frontier territories of Sudetenland, previously forcibly abandoned by ethnic Germans. More than seven decades later, we find sharply more individualistic responses to the pandemic crisis at the historic border of the resettled lands, despite finding no discontinuities in the supply of physical health infrastructure. Inter-generational transmission of individualistic norms, demonstrated via name choices and survey evidence, appears to drive the long-lasting footprint, although the legacy is moderated in places with initially less social capital destruction.

Abstract: Adequate wages aim to improve performance of public officials, but can also redirect effort to activities easily observable by voters. We examine the implications of raising elected officials' remuneration using administrative public procurement data and a midterm reform that redefined population brackets used for political wage-setting. We show that better-paid officials allocate more contracts shortly before elections: dominantly small and mid-sized contracts on works and repairs awarded via faster, simplified procedures. The pre-electoral spending hike cannot be attributed to electoral selection and in line with re-election incentives, it dominates in electorally competitive councils.

Abstract: We present evidence of how the policy of real-time monitoring business sales via electronic sales registers (e-Registers) reduces the elasticity of taxable income (ETI). Using 2012-2019 administrative tax-return data on the Czech self-employed, we show that many taxpayers under e-Registers stop bunching at the personal tax credit kink. The ETI declines up to 65%, especially among the self-employed who claim top flat-rate expenses. We decompose the ETI into revenue and cost elasticities and estimate extensive-margin responses. Our evidence supports arguments that the ETI is not a structural parameter, but a variable dependent on the strictness of tax enforcement.