1,849 research outputs found
A case study on Germany's aviation tax using the synthetic control approach
The German Aviation Tax (AT) is a tax levied on departing passengers from German airports. The synthetic control method is used to generate counterfactual passenger numbers for German airports, and for airports outside Germany but near the German border. The results presented are consistent with cross-border substitution of passenger demand in response to AT. Most AT exempt airports near the borders have made sizable, significant, gains in passenger numbers since Germany introduced AT. Within Germany there appears to be a clear distinction in the impact on small/regional airports and that on larger hubs
Languages and language varieties: Comparative research on the linguistic attitudes in four bilingual minority communities in Hungary
A central issue of this paper is to study the patterns invariation of attitudes toward minority language varieties in four minority communities from Hungary: German, Slovak, Serb and Romanian. This study takes part from the research which focuses on how to obtain significant information about the mechanism of the language shift process concerning autochthonous minorities in Hungary. The results demonstrate that in the course of language shift communities at an advanced stage of language shift have less positive attitudes toward their minority languages than individuals from communities where language shift is in a less advanced stage. In Hungarian minority groups speakers’ attitudes toward minority language varieties (dialect vs. standard) are the symptoms of language shift
GEFCOM 2014 - Probabilistic Electricity Price Forecasting
Energy price forecasting is a relevant yet hard task in the field of
multi-step time series forecasting. In this paper we compare a well-known and
established method, ARMA with exogenous variables with a relatively new
technique Gradient Boosting Regression. The method was tested on data from
Global Energy Forecasting Competition 2014 with a year long rolling window
forecast. The results from the experiment reveal that a multi-model approach is
significantly better performing in terms of error metrics. Gradient Boosting
can deal with seasonality and auto-correlation out-of-the box and achieve lower
rate of normalized mean absolute error on real-world data.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, KES-IDT 2015 conference. The final publication
is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19857-6_
Essays on the impact of changing tax rates and welfare spending
Error on title page, date of award is 2020.This thesis examines how changes in tax rates and welfare spending affect the behaviour of markets, households and individuals. In three distinct essays, we make use of applied
econometric methods to examine both intended and unintended consequences of changes in tax and welfare policy, their impact on efficiency and equity in the economy, and the way in which they influence people’s behaviour. Our findings are intended to contribute to the wider policy debate on the optimal use of tax and spending instruments to achieve policy objectives.
Chapter 1 is titled "A case study of Germany’s aviation tax using the synthetic approach". This chapter is a case study on the German Aviation Tax, a tax levied on departing passengers
from German airports1. Aviation taxes receive considerable attention as they have been introduced recently in a number of European countries. Policy makers often motivate these taxes as environmental measures implemented to minimise negative externalities from air travel, or as tools to raise revenues from an otherwise undertaxed sector. Conversely, many experts claim that single-country aviation taxes are inefficient both as environmental
measures and revenue-raising tools, due to tax avoidance opportunities presented by tax-exempt airports in neighbouring countries. Critics also point to the adverse effects aviation taxes have on demand, competitiveness and connectivity at domestic air-ports.
Despite their policy relevance, empirical evidence on the effects of aviation taxes is sparse.
Only a few studies focus on the issue of aviation taxation, and only a handful of these studies examine the ex post effects of newly introduced aviation taxes on passenger flows at tax burdened airports. A key methodological challenge in this small literature stems from the fact that the ex post effects of aviation tax changes can only be analysed in quasiexperimental settings, where airports with changes in aviation taxes (treated airports) are compared to a group of airports (controls) not affected by the same policy. Since passenger trends at airports are affected by a wide variety of factors, and are often times highly idiosyncratic, the methodological challenge is to find the appropriate group of control airports to compare treated ones to. Consequently, our main methodological contribution to the literature is to make use of a novel approach, the synthetic control method, to optimise the selection of control airports.
In this chapter, we investigate the impact Germany’s aviation tax has had on passenger numbers using the synthetic control method to generate counterfactual passenger numbers for German airports, and for airports outside Germany but near the German border.
Our results suggest that passengers engaged in cross-border substitution in response to the aviation tax. Most tax-exempt airports near German borders have made sizeable gains in passenger numbers since Germany introduced its aviation tax. Within Germany there appears to be a clear distinction in the impact on small/regional airports and that on larger hubs - while we find a negative impact on traffic at regional airports, passenger
numbers at hubs were largely unaffected (or were even positively affected). From a policy perspective, the finding of a cross-border substitution effect implies that the aviation
tax might not be effective in curbing overall emissions from air travel, whilst also leading to lost tax revenues through the displacement of passengers to neighbouring countries.
Considering the dual objectives of the policy, the optimal policy outcome from the imple-mentation of AT would be 1) a reduction in overall air travel demand (to cut emissions) and 2) no cross-border substitution effect in order to avoid the loss of the tax base. The
findings in this chapter provide evidence to the contrary: German demand, and overall air travel demand, is not reduced to a large extent, but the cross-border effect is sizeable.
Chapter 2 is titled "Limiting the distortionary impacts of transaction taxes: Scottish stamp duty after the Mirrlees Review". This chapter investigates the distortionary impacts of transaction taxes through a case study of the Scottish residential property market. Tax on
property transactions, also known as stamp duty, is a common form of property taxation but not a very popular one. Economists consider these taxes inefficient for a number of reasons. First, they reduce the incentive to engage in mutually beneficial property transactions, leading to welfare loss as properties are not owned by the individuals who assign the most value to them. Second, they increase the tax burden on those who, for whatever reason, trade housing more often. Lastly, by increasing the cost of mobility, transaction taxes make it more difficult for homeowners to relocate in search of appropriate employment In line with these efficiency concerns, recent policy changes in Scotland were aimed at
reducing distortions from the transaction tax system by 1) simplifying the structure of the tax system and 2) reducing the tax burden for the majority of home buyers (and increasing
it for those aiming to buy expensive properties). Although recent studies provide credible empirical evidence on the distortions created by transaction tax regimes, the key contribution of our study is that it is the first one to study policy changes aimed at reducing said distortions. From a policy perspective this is important since governments might struggle to replace transaction tax regimes for budgeting or administrative reasons, leaving sensible reform as the only feasible policy option to mitigate efficiency concerns.
To study the property market impacts of transaction taxes and assess the effects of recent reform, this chapter makes use of four sources of variation in transaction tax rates present in recent Scottish tax systems: price notches, kink points, time notches and a shift to a more progressive transaction tax regime. Our analysis makes use of bunching estimator and difference-in-differences approaches to examine how variations in transaction tax
rates influence transaction activity on the Scottish property market. Our results show that both kinds of notches have a distortionary impact that is sub-optimal. The Scottish Government’s recent reforms had a positive impact through replacement of price notches
with kink points, but time notches emerged allowing other distortions to persist. Through a comparison of price ranges affected and unaffected by the policy changes, we also find
that progressive reform had a significant (and long-term) positive impact on transaction activity in the market segment where tax rates were reduced. On the other hand, the higher end of the market, where tax rates increased, was mostly unaffected by progressive reform with the exception of the market for very expensive properties, where a negative effect is identified. Implications of our findings are that if governments want to make
transaction tax regimes more efficient, progressive taxation might be a good way to limit their distortionary impact, whilst also encouraging transaction activity in the lower end
of the market.
Chapter 3 is titled "The impact of housing subsidy cuts on the labour market outcomes of claimants: Evidence from England". This final chapter looks at the labour market impacts of reduced housing subsidies. Housing subsidies are aimed at helping low-income individuals afford appropriate housing, but are costly to offer. Also, in the view of some experts and policy makers, housing subsidies reduce work incentives and/or work effort among claimants. Economic theory is ambiguous on the likely labour market impacts of changes in housing subsidy entitlements. To date, there is no credible empirical evidence linking housing subsidy cuts to positive changes in labour market outcomes. Nonetheless, policy makers often motivate cuts to subsidies as a way to encourage claimants to seek employment (or put in more work effort).
This chapter investigates the labour market impacts of recent housing subsidy cuts in England that were justified using a similar argument to that discussed above. Our investigation
makes use of individual-level survey data from the Understanding Society survey. Using this data set allows us to track subsidy claimants over time and control for a wide range of individual and household characteristics. Our identification strategy
relies on the fact that, within the time period investigated, the subsidy cuts were only implemented for claimants renting from one segment of England’s rental sector (the private rental sector) while claimants renting from other segments (the social rental sector)
were unaffected. We utilise this variation in exposure to the subsidy cuts within a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effect of reduced housing subsidies on the labour market outcomes of claimants. We find no evidence of a change in labour market outcomes for those affected by subsidy cuts, indicating that, at least on aggregate, the reforms did not succeed in encouraging employment among claimants. These null findings should be of considerable interest to policy makers who often assume a
causal link between the generosity of benefit entitlements and the work effort/incentives of claimants. More specifically, our findings suggest that as a policy instrument, cuts to housing subsidies may not be effective in generating efficiency gains through increased
labour market participation or work effort.This thesis examines how changes in tax rates and welfare spending affect the behaviour of markets, households and individuals. In three distinct essays, we make use of applied
econometric methods to examine both intended and unintended consequences of changes in tax and welfare policy, their impact on efficiency and equity in the economy, and the way in which they influence people’s behaviour. Our findings are intended to contribute to the wider policy debate on the optimal use of tax and spending instruments to achieve policy objectives.
Chapter 1 is titled "A case study of Germany’s aviation tax using the synthetic approach". This chapter is a case study on the German Aviation Tax, a tax levied on departing passengers
from German airports1. Aviation taxes receive considerable attention as they have been introduced recently in a number of European countries. Policy makers often motivate these taxes as environmental measures implemented to minimise negative externalities from air travel, or as tools to raise revenues from an otherwise undertaxed sector. Conversely, many experts claim that single-country aviation taxes are inefficient both as environmental
measures and revenue-raising tools, due to tax avoidance opportunities presented by tax-exempt airports in neighbouring countries. Critics also point to the adverse effects aviation taxes have on demand, competitiveness and connectivity at domestic air-ports.
Despite their policy relevance, empirical evidence on the effects of aviation taxes is sparse.
Only a few studies focus on the issue of aviation taxation, and only a handful of these studies examine the ex post effects of newly introduced aviation taxes on passenger flows at tax burdened airports. A key methodological challenge in this small literature stems from the fact that the ex post effects of aviation tax changes can only be analysed in quasiexperimental settings, where airports with changes in aviation taxes (treated airports) are compared to a group of airports (controls) not affected by the same policy. Since passenger trends at airports are affected by a wide variety of factors, and are often times highly idiosyncratic, the methodological challenge is to find the appropriate group of control airports to compare treated ones to. Consequently, our main methodological contribution to the literature is to make use of a novel approach, the synthetic control method, to optimise the selection of control airports.
In this chapter, we investigate the impact Germany’s aviation tax has had on passenger numbers using the synthetic control method to generate counterfactual passenger numbers for German airports, and for airports outside Germany but near the German border.
Our results suggest that passengers engaged in cross-border substitution in response to the aviation tax. Most tax-exempt airports near German borders have made sizeable gains in passenger numbers since Germany introduced its aviation tax. Within Germany there appears to be a clear distinction in the impact on small/regional airports and that on larger hubs - while we find a negative impact on traffic at regional airports, passenger
numbers at hubs were largely unaffected (or were even positively affected). From a policy perspective, the finding of a cross-border substitution effect implies that the aviation
tax might not be effective in curbing overall emissions from air travel, whilst also leading to lost tax revenues through the displacement of passengers to neighbouring countries.
Considering the dual objectives of the policy, the optimal policy outcome from the imple-mentation of AT would be 1) a reduction in overall air travel demand (to cut emissions) and 2) no cross-border substitution effect in order to avoid the loss of the tax base. The
findings in this chapter provide evidence to the contrary: German demand, and overall air travel demand, is not reduced to a large extent, but the cross-border effect is sizeable.
Chapter 2 is titled "Limiting the distortionary impacts of transaction taxes: Scottish stamp duty after the Mirrlees Review". This chapter investigates the distortionary impacts of transaction taxes through a case study of the Scottish residential property market. Tax on
property transactions, also known as stamp duty, is a common form of property taxation but not a very popular one. Economists consider these taxes inefficient for a number of reasons. First, they reduce the incentive to engage in mutually beneficial property transactions, leading to welfare loss as properties are not owned by the individuals who assign the most value to them. Second, they increase the tax burden on those who, for whatever reason, trade housing more often. Lastly, by increasing the cost of mobility, transaction taxes make it more difficult for homeowners to relocate in search of appropriate employment In line with these efficiency concerns, recent policy changes in Scotland were aimed at
reducing distortions from the transaction tax system by 1) simplifying the structure of the tax system and 2) reducing the tax burden for the majority of home buyers (and increasing
it for those aiming to buy expensive properties). Although recent studies provide credible empirical evidence on the distortions created by transaction tax regimes, the key contribution of our study is that it is the first one to study policy changes aimed at reducing said distortions. From a policy perspective this is important since governments might struggle to replace transaction tax regimes for budgeting or administrative reasons, leaving sensible reform as the only feasible policy option to mitigate efficiency concerns.
To study the property market impacts of transaction taxes and assess the effects of recent reform, this chapter makes use of four sources of variation in transaction tax rates present in recent Scottish tax systems: price notches, kink points, time notches and a shift to a more progressive transaction tax regime. Our analysis makes use of bunching estimator and difference-in-differences approaches to examine how variations in transaction tax
rates influence transaction activity on the Scottish property market. Our results show that both kinds of notches have a distortionary impact that is sub-optimal. The Scottish Government’s recent reforms had a positive impact through replacement of price notches
with kink points, but time notches emerged allowing other distortions to persist. Through a comparison of price ranges affected and unaffected by the policy changes, we also find
that progressive reform had a significant (and long-term) positive impact on transaction activity in the market segment where tax rates were reduced. On the other hand, the higher end of the market, where tax rates increased, was mostly unaffected by progressive reform with the exception of the market for very expensive properties, where a negative effect is identified. Implications of our findings are that if governments want to make
transaction tax regimes more efficient, progressive taxation might be a good way to limit their distortionary impact, whilst also encouraging transaction activity in the lower end
of the market.
Chapter 3 is titled "The impact of housing subsidy cuts on the labour market outcomes of claimants: Evidence from England". This final chapter looks at the labour market impacts of reduced housing subsidies. Housing subsidies are aimed at helping low-income individuals afford appropriate housing, but are costly to offer. Also, in the view of some experts and policy makers, housing subsidies reduce work incentives and/or work effort among claimants. Economic theory is ambiguous on the likely labour market impacts of changes in housing subsidy entitlements. To date, there is no credible empirical evidence linking housing subsidy cuts to positive changes in labour market outcomes. Nonetheless, policy makers often motivate cuts to subsidies as a way to encourage claimants to seek employment (or put in more work effort).
This chapter investigates the labour market impacts of recent housing subsidy cuts in England that were justified using a similar argument to that discussed above. Our investigation
makes use of individual-level survey data from the Understanding Society survey. Using this data set allows us to track subsidy claimants over time and control for a wide range of individual and household characteristics. Our identification strategy
relies on the fact that, within the time period investigated, the subsidy cuts were only implemented for claimants renting from one segment of England’s rental sector (the private rental sector) while claimants renting from other segments (the social rental sector)
were unaffected. We utilise this variation in exposure to the subsidy cuts within a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effect of reduced housing subsidies on the labour market outcomes of claimants. We find no evidence of a change in labour market outcomes for those affected by subsidy cuts, indicating that, at least on aggregate, the reforms did not succeed in encouraging employment among claimants. These null findings should be of considerable interest to policy makers who often assume a
causal link between the generosity of benefit entitlements and the work effort/incentives of claimants. More specifically, our findings suggest that as a policy instrument, cuts to housing subsidies may not be effective in generating efficiency gains through increased
labour market participation or work effort
The impact of housing subsidy cuts on the labour market outcomes of claimants:Evidence from England
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