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Tax Policy and Entrepreneurship: New Time Series Evidence

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Abstract

Have tax policies affected entrepreneurial activity in the U.S.? We extend the time series literature on this topic by using more recent data and modern econometric techniques to examine the importance of federal income, payroll, capital gains, corporate income, and estate taxes on self-employment rates. Regression results show that most of these taxes have significant but small effects on self-employment activity. A battery of cointegration and causality tests confirms the general finding that taxes can have significant influences on entrepreneurship, but they are likely to be ineffective tools for generating meaningful changes in entrepreneurial activity.

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Correspondence to Donald Bruce.

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Bruce, D., Mohsin, M. Tax Policy and Entrepreneurship: New Time Series Evidence. Small Bus Econ 26, 409–425 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-005-5602-8

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