IESET.
Policies·at_bankenabgabe_verdopplung_2025

Doubling of Austrian bank levy (Stabilitaetsabgabe) 2025

AUT·2025 present·enacted 2025-06-20·OeVP-SPOe-NEOScandidate
movestax capitalfinancial deregulation

What the policy did

Approximately doubled the Austrian bank levy (Stabilitaetsabgabe) from 2025 as part of the consolidation package, alongside retention of the temporary excess-profits levy on energy companies (Energiekrisenbeitrag extension). SPOe-demanded element of the three-party coalition bargain, framed as windfall-contribution from banks that had benefited from the 2022-2024 ECB rate-hike cycle. Targeted yield ~EUR 500m annually.

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 capital
fiscal.tax_capital
Taxation of capital income (dividends, capital gains, inheritance, wealth). Distinct from corporate rate.
increased · weak
higher capital income tax
Levy on bank balance sheets and fee income raises the effective tax burden on financial-sector capital.
unintended / side-effect
financial deregulation
regulatory.financial_deregulation
Financial-sector regulation — banking separation, capital requirements, cross-border activity rules, derivatives oversight.
increased · weak · unintended
tighter financial regulation
Higher levy burden is a mild tightening of financial-sector policy posture; intended as revenue rather than prudential instrument.

Enacted by

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?".

Major episodes of financial deregulation — the 1999 US Gramm-Leach- Bliley repeal of Glass-Steagall, the 1986 UK Financial Services Act ("Big Bang"), Chile's 1974-1981 banking liberalisation, Sweden's late-1980s credit-market liberalisation, and Japan's 1996-2001 Big Bang — are followed within 10 years by higher-than-baseline incidence of banking crises, measured by the Laeven-Valencia Systemic Banking Crisis Database, and by elevated credit-to-GDP gaps per BIS.
financial_deregulation_crisis_vulnerabilityinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulation
SUPPORTED — sign matches claim +, ATT=+0.04145, p=3.34e-07, N=302, treated_countries=8
supported
Wealth taxes produce a three-order causal chain.
wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_capital
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — FRA not in panel
run pending
The 2007-2009 global financial crisis originated in household-debt-financed consumption sustaining aggregate demand despite stagnant real wages, a Minsky-plus-Marx pattern.
gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_linkinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulation
PARTIAL — coef=-0.01111, p=0; claim direction not auto-inferred
partial
In an OECD panel 2000-2023, increases in OECD Product Market Regulation (PMR) stringency and increases in regulatory uncertainty (proxied by year-to-year changes in the OECD PMR sub-indices) are negatively associated with private non-residential investment as a share of GDP, with effects concentrated in capital-intensive long-duration sectors.
hayek_regulatory_uncertainty_investment_chillinginferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulation
REFUTED — coef=-3.98 (sign opposite claim +), p=0
refuted
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage financial freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership.
heritage_financial_freedom_account_ownership_income_region_robustnessinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulationfiscal.tax_capital
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=1.116, p=0.4508)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage financial freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available employment rate.
heritage_financial_freedom_employment_rate_income_region_robustnessinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulationfiscal.tax_capital
SUPPORTED — controlled market-score coefficient has expected sign + and p=0.002653
supported
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage financial freedom in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount.
heritage_financial_freedom_extreme_poverty_income_region_robustnessinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulationfiscal.tax_capital
REFUTED — controlled market-score coefficient has opposite sign and p=0.009612
refuted
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage financial freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available female labour-force participation.
heritage_financial_freedom_female_lfp_income_region_robustnessinferred
viaregulatory.financial_deregulationfiscal.tax_capital
SUPPORTED — controlled market-score coefficient has expected sign + and p=0.006584
supported

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.

References