Neil Brooks (York University, Osgoode Hall Law School) presents The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation: A Comparison of High- and Low-Tax Countries (with Thaddeus Hwong (York University, Osgoode Hall Law School)) at UCLA today as part of its Tax Policy and Public Finance Workshop Series, Here is the part of the Summary:

Tax cuts are disastrous for the well-being of a nation’s citizens. Findings from this study show that high-tax countries have been more successful in achieving their social objectives than low-tax countries. Interestingly, they have done so with no economic penalty.

On the majority of social measures we examine, high-tax countries rank significantly above low-tax countries. On a number of the economic indicators we examine, low-tax countries rank above high-tax countries, but the difference is almost never significant.

We examine 50 indicators that are commonly used to measure a country’s social progress. On over half of these indicators (29), the outcomes in high-tax Nordic countries are significantly better than those in low-tax Anglo-American countries, and on most of the remaining indicators (13), social outcomes are somewhat better in Nordic countries.