Interdependance of tax structures and economic growth in selected Central and East European countries and the Republic of Croatia

U doktorskoj disertaciji procjenjuje se međuovisnost poreznih struktura i ekonomskog rasta u odabranim državama srednje i istočne Europe i Republici Hrvatskoj u razdoblju od 1990. godine do 2010. godine. U teorijskom dijelu rada sustavno se obrađuju teorije endogenog i egzogenog ekonomskog rasta, kao i utjecaj raznih makroekonomskih varijabli, te monetarne i fiskalne politike na ekonomski rast. Također, u teorijskom dijelu rada prikazane su najznačajnije teorijske veze oporezivanja potrošnje, rada i štednje, te utjecaj najznačajnijih poreznih oblika na bruto domaći proizvod po glavi stanovnika. U empirijskom dijelu rada modelira se utjecaj poreznih struktura na ekonomski rast, na temelju podataka za 20 odabranih država (EU-13, te odabrane bivše članice SSSR-a i Albaniju) pomoću PMG procjenitelja (eng. Pooled Mean Group Estimator). Analiza je usredotočena na strukturu poreza, a ne na njihovu razinu. Sve regresije sadrže razinu poreza izraženu kao udio ukupnih poreznih prihoda u BDP-u. Porezni oblici koji se koriste u modelu, a sukladno OECD klasifikaciji poreza su: porez na dohodak, doprinosi za socijalno osiguranje, porez na dobit, porezi na potrošnju, porezi na imovinu i porezi na platne liste. Također, varijable koje se koriste u modeliranju su: bruto domaći proizvod po stanovniku, udio bruto investicije u BDP-u, stopa rasta stanovništva, bruto stopa upisa u institucije visokog obrazovanja. PMG procjenitelj je metoda koja je posebno prigodna za upotrebu kada se koristi panel gdje je vremenska i grupna dimenzija relativno velika (20X20 pa na više) te sličnih dimenzija u odnosu na uobičajene pristupe koji se koriste pri modeliranju panel podataka, a to su MG metoda (eng. Mean Group Estimator) te DFE metoda (eng. Dynamic Fixed Effects). U radu su prikazani rezultati sve tri metode. Rezultati prikazani u radu pokazuju da svi oblici poreza imaju negativan utjecaj na ekonomski rast. Najveći negativan utjecaj imaju porezi na dohodak, slijede ih porezi na dobit, te porezi na imovinu koji imaju najmanji negativan utjecaj. Također, porezi na potrošnju nisu se pokazali statistički značajnim. Rezultati prikazani u ovom radu ukazuju na bitno drugačiji utjecaj porezne strukture promatranih zemalja u odnosu na razvijene industrijske zemlje OECD-a za koje su se do sada vodila istraživanja. Može se zaključiti, prije svega, da je porezna struktura bitno drugačija u kontekstu važnosti pojedinih poreznih oblika za proračune, da utjecaj poreznih oblika na ekonomski rast pokazuje sličnosti (potvrđuje zaključak o negativnom djelovanju direktnih poreza na ekonomski rast), ali i razlike (u okviru ostalih poreznih oblika) te se može pretpostaviti da je utjecaj varijabli okruženja te relevantnih makroekonomskih varijabli značajniji nego u zemljama OECD-a. Navedeni zaključci predstavljaju osnovu za daljnja istraživanja u ovom području, a rezultati prikazani u radu mogu koristiti nositeljima fiskalne politike u analiziranim državama prilikom dizajniranja poreznog sustava.This doctoral dissertation investigates the relationship between tax structures and economic growth in selected Central and Eastern European countries and the Republic of Croatia in the period from 1990 to 2010. The theoretical part of the dissertation systematically discusses the theory of endogenous and exogenous economic growth as well as the impact of various macroeconomic variables and the monetary and fiscal policies on economic growth. Moreover, it gives an overview of the most important theoretical notions on consumption, labor and savings taxation, and the impact of the most significant taxation forms on gross domestic product per capita. In the empirical part of the work, the author models the impact of tax structures on economic growth, based on the data for 20 selected countries (EU-13 and selected former Soviet Union countries and Albania) using pooled mean group estimator (PMG). The analysis focuses on the structure of taxes and not their level. All regressions contain the level of taxes expressed as a share of total tax revenues in GDP. The tax forms used in the model, in accordance with the OECD classification of taxes, are: personal income tax, social security contributions, corporate income tax, consumption taxes, property taxes and payroll taxes. The variables used in the modeling include: gross domestic product per capita, the share of gross investment in GDP, population growth rate and the gross enrollment rate into higher education institutions. The PMG estimator is a particularly appropriate method when using a panel where time and group dimensions are relatively large (20X20 and over) and similar dimensions in relation to conventional approaches used in panel data analysis, such as the MG method (Mean Group Estimator) and the DFE method (Dynamic Fixed Effects). The results of all three methods are presented in the work and they show that all tax forms have a negative impact on economic growth. Personal income taxes proved to have the highest negative impact on economic growth, followed by corporate income taxes and property taxes which had the least negative impact. Consumption taxes showed to be statistically insignificant. Furthermore, the results indicate a significantly different impact observed countries’ tax structures had on economic growth to that of OECD developed industrial countries which have been researched so far. It can be concluded, among other, that tax structures are significantly different in terms of the importance of individual tax forms for the budgets, that the impacts of tax forms on economic growth show similarities (confirms the conclusion on the negative impact of direct taxes on economic growth), but also differences (within the framework of other tax forms). In addition to this, it can be assumed that the impact of environment variables and relevant macroeconomic variables is more significant in the selected countries than in the OECD countries. These conclusions should serve as a basis for further research in this area. The results presented in this dissertation can be of use to those responsible for the fiscal policies in the analyzed countries when designing tax system