Policies·ar_macri_tax_reform_2017

Comprehensive tax reform (Ley 27.430, Dec 2017)

ARG·2017 – 2019·enacted 2017-12-29·Cambiemoscandidate

movestax corporate↓labour market flexibility↑tax capital↑

What the policy did

Ley 27.430 enacted a multi-year corporate-tax-rate schedule reducing the CIT rate from 35% to 30% (2018-2019) and 25% (2020+), introduced a dividend withholding, cut employer social contributions on low-wage labour, modernised transfer-pricing rules, established a fiscal consensus with provinces rolling back the distorting gross-receipts (ingresos brutos) tax, and expanded the scope of personal-income-tax exemptions. Portions were subsequently suspended or reversed under the 2019 emergency law and the Fernández administration.

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended

↓

tax corporate

fiscal.tax_corporate

Statutory and effective corporate tax rates, treatment of depreciation, and international competitiveness.

decreased · moderate

lower corporate tax burden

↑

labour market flexibility

regulatory.labour_market_flexibility

Ease of hiring/firing, collective-bargaining scope, minimum wage rigidity, temporary/permanent contract regulation.

increased · weak

more flexible (easier hiring/firing, less rigid bargaining)

Employer-contribution minimum deduction.

↑

tax capital

fiscal.tax_capital

Taxation of capital income (dividends, capital gains, inheritance, wealth). Distinct from corporate rate.

increased · weak

higher capital income tax

New dividend withholding partially offsets CIT cut.

Enacted by

argentina_macri_cambiemos_2015_2019

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

Countries with stricter employment protection legislation — measured by the OECD EPL indicator (or comparable alternatives where OECD EPL is missing) — experience longer average unemployment duration, holding other controls constant.

labour_market_flexibility_unemployment_durationinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibility

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — interaction term requested but no loadable constructed interaction variable is defined. The generic panel_fe runner would otherwise …

run pending

In a broad-country panel 1990-2019, greater labour-market flexibility — measured by lower OECD EPL overall strictness, higher ease-of-hiring scores, and absence of centralized wage bargaining — predicts higher employment-to- population ratios and faster real GDP per capita growth, controlling for institutional quality, education, and trade openness.

labour_market_flexibility_employment_growth_panelinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibility

PARTIAL — coef=-1.251, p=0.162 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Labour-market flexibility (ease of hiring and firing, low EPL, decentralised wage bargaining) improves long-run employment rates, productivity growth, and GDP per capita only when paired with complementary adjustment institutions: active labour-market policy (retraining, job search assistance), relocation support, or income-smoothing mechanisms (unemployment insurance, portable benefits).

labour_flexibility_security_complementinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibilityfiscal.tax_capital

PARTIAL — coef=+1.306e-16, p=0.339; effect magnitude effectively zero

partial

Germany's Agenda 2010 labour-market reforms worked within the Ordoliberal framework precisely because they preserved collective-bargaining institutions and vocational-training architecture; the same reforms imposed on UK-style labour markets produced larger inequality increases.

labour_market_reform_institutional_complementarityinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibility

PARTIAL — coef=-7.366e+04, p=0.927 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Strong employment-protection legislation (EPL) with high union wage-setting coverage and limited at-will dismissal produces a three-order causal chain in Southern European labour markets.

strong_union_labour_law_youth_unemployment_south_europeinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibility

PARTIAL — coef=+2.943, p=0.252 (above α=0.05); direction inconclusive

partial

Labour-market flexibilisation reforms improve unemployment outcomes in countries with strong active-labour-market-policy (ALMP) complementarities (Denmark flexicurity post-1994, Germany Agenda 2010 / Hartz I-IV 2003-2005) but produce inequality increases without commensurate employment gains in countries lacking institutional ALMP infrastructure.

labour_market_reform_almp_complementarity_effectinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibility

SUPPORTED — coef=-5.815 (sign matches claim -), p=8.21e-05

supported

In an OECD-country panel 2014-2024, reductions in the top statutory capital- gains tax rate predict higher subsequent gross fixed capital formation as a share of GDP and higher business-startup rates, controlling for corporate-tax rates, interest rates, and institutional quality.

capital_gains_tax_cut_investment_response_panelinferred

viafiscal.tax_capitalfiscal.tax_corporate

SUPPORTED — coef=-0.1981 (sign matches claim -), p=0.00535

supported

Across OECD countries 1975-2020, lower product-market regulation (PMR) predicts higher long-run total-factor-productivity growth, after controlling for education attainment, capital deepening, and initial income per capita.

product_market_regulation_tfp_30yr_panelinferred

viaregulatory.labour_market_flexibilityfiscal.tax_capital

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'oecd_pmr_composite_index' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

run pending

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

Macron labour + tax reforms (Ordonnances 2017 + PFU 2018)

FRA·2017

match

1.5

labour market flexibilitytax capitaltax corporate

Finnish corporate-tax cut to 20 percent 2014

FIN·2014

match

1.3

tax corporatetax capital

Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA 1986)

USA·1986