

Ask HN:  Who says tax breaks create jobs? - forkandwait

While plausible, I would love to see some empirical evidence that tax breaks do, in fact, create jobs.  Where is it?  And where is the evidence against the Keynesian idea that the added personal income from a tax break will (basically) just be stuffed under the mattress in a bad economy (in bad investment climates, investors prefer to remain liquid).<p>My bias is toward Keynes, but I would like to actually have data, not just ideologically driven conjecture to base that on or to change it.
======
fractallyte
Channel 4 in the UK recently showed a documentary by Martin Durkin
([http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-trillion-
pound-h...](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-trillion-pound-horror-
story/4od)) which highlighted the economic effects of lowering taxes.

Hong Kong was his example of a booming entrepreneurial economy stimulated by
light-handed governance. Britain was the counter-example: a vast burden of
taxes imposed on the working population, and a corresponding stagnation of
economy (and society).

I hope this is relevant to your question!

~~~
forkandwait
It is relevant indeed, but I am hoping for something smaller and more
controlled. There are plenty of low tax shitholes (I think much of S. America)
and plenty of high tax super economies (Germany, the finance part of Great
Britain), so I don't think the country level analysis is going to work. Again,
I don't really know what I am talking about....

~~~
fractallyte
And here's a rather cool article which focuses more on low-tax/tax-free local
economies:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thaddeus-russell/mafia-
renegad...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thaddeus-russell/mafia-renegade-
history_b_773546.html#s164710)

There's a pattern here! All of a sudden this is a far more interesting
topic... ;-)

------
gtlenz
The best book to read up on the subject is "The Growth Experiment" by Lawrence
Lindsey. Here is the link: [http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Experiment-Policy-
Transforming-...](http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Experiment-Policy-Transforming-
Economy/dp/0465027512/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1289833879&sr=8-3)

