ABSTRACT
Comparative research on the determinants of fiscal policy developments in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) democracies has produced consistent but somewhat unexpected evidence over the last years: Since the mid-1980s, almost all OECD member states have adopted tax reforms which stipulated cuts to the tax rates, particularly for businesses, and a broadening of the tax base (see Devereux et al. 2002; Steinmo and Swank 2002; Ganghof 2005). According to quantitative research, these reforms were hardly influenced by the partisan complexion of the respective governments (Steinmo and Swank 2002). These findings contravene the fact that differences in the partisan complexion of governments in the post-war period have led to tax systems which still differ remarkably throughout the OECD world: for example, countries predominantly governed by Social Democratic parties exhibit high tax ratios, while the rule of Liberal or Conservative parties led to significantly lower tax burdens (Wagschal 2005: 390-5).
