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War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States

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War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2016 War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Economics Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Bakhtiari, Sarah Nelson, "War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1214. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1214 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States __________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________ by Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari November 2016 Advisor: Rachel Epstein ©Copyright by Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari 2016 All Rights Reserved Author: Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari Title: War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency for War in the United States Advisor: Rachel Epstein Degree Date: November 2016 ABSTRACT The obsolescence of war taxes in the United States after 1968 is a product of the state’s increased institutional resiliency for war. Historically, war taxes were raised for purposes of revenue generation for contemporaneous war spending or wartime inflation control. The state’s development of a robust tax system that provides high and automatically increasing revenues over time, along with monetary mechanisms for price stability, obviate the need for war taxes. In particular, the development of the income tax system and the use of inflation-targeting monetary policy expanded the state’s warfighting capacity without reliance on war taxes. These developments suggest a change in the relative capacity of the state and the executive vis-à-vis the public. The executive can leverage the state’s significant institutional capacities for war with a much- reduced requirement for additional political action or public mobilization, minimizing the potential for increased public scrutiny that such efforts invite. Consequently, war taxes have obsolesced, and aren’t expected to return. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first debt of gratitude is to the U.S. Air Force, and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies in particular, without which I would not have had the opportunity to pursue my doctorate. The second debt is to the Josef Korbel School faculty, with special thanks to the Sié Chéou-Kang Center and its faculty and staff. In particular I want to thank my ever-steady and brilliant dissertation director, Rachel Epstein; the inspiring Debbi Avant, about whom I cannot write enough; and Cullen Hendrix, a rising star. I’d also like to thank the war finance scholars who paved the way for my research: Sarah Kreps, Gustavo Flores-Macias, Rosella Cappella Zielinski, Matthew DiGiuseppe, Patrick Shea, Randall Germain, Hugh Rockoff, and Patrick Shea. Finally, without my peers at Korbel, I’d have been lost. Thank you to: Max Bremer, Kyleanne Hunter, Pauline Moore, Jonathan Pinckney, Kara Kingma, Carey Neill, Amme Kolovos, Chris Shay, Scott Galloway, Laura Hosman, Maria Lotito, Malliga Och, and Kangkyu Lee. It really does take a village! Many, many thanks go to my friends Wood and Trisha Alberts, Patrick and Susan Malone, and Steve and Krista Kapp and their families; to my in-laws Hossein and Nancy Bakhtiari; and to my parents, Rick and Pam Nelson, and my little sister, Emily, all of whom kept me afloat with their support and generosity. Finally, two individuals deserve the most special of mentions. First, I’ll thank Max Bremer for his service as my constant consultant. Thanks, Max. Lastly, I’ll thank my husband, who never doubted me, even when I was certain that I just couldn’t figure it out, when I held the deepest doubts about the limits of my own potential. Thank you, Jeff. Without you, this dissertation wouldn’t be sitting here before my eyes! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 The Empirical Puzzle .............................................................................................. 4 The Argument in Brief: Institutional Resiliency .................................................... 8 Alternative Explanations ....................................................................................... 13 The Plan of the Dissertation .................................................................................. 22 Chapter Two: An Institutional Development Explanation ............................................... 26 Theory Overview: Institutional Development ...................................................... 27 Theoretical Foundations ........................................................................................ 30 Institutional Development ......................................................................... 31 Tax Types .................................................................................................. 35 Tax Attitudes and Voting Behavior .......................................................... 37 Foreign Policy ........................................................................................... 43 Institutional Development: Taxation and Monetary Policy .................................. 45 Path Dependence in Taxation ................................................................... 45 Path Dependence in Monetary Policy ....................................................... 49 Research Design, Operationalization, and Evidence ............................................ 55 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 58 Chapter Three: Institutional Resiliency for Revenue Generation ..................................... 62 Institutional Development: War and the Revenue System ................................... 64 The Federal Tax Structure ........................................................................ 71 Institutional Capacity for Automatic Tax Revenues: Tax Buoyancy ................... 79 Trends in General U.S. Taxation after World War II ........................................... 87 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 97 Chapter Four: Institutional Resiliency for Price Stability ................................................. 99 Institutional Development: Monetary Policy and Inflation ................................ 100 Understanding Inflation I: Inflation and Inflation Targeting .................. 101 Understanding Inflation II: Inflation Expectations ................................. 106 Empirical Evidence ............................................................................................. 110 U.S. Monetary Policy: Stabilizing Inflation and Inflation Expectations 110 Overview of Wartime Inflation ............................................................... 118 Exploring the Cases: Korea, Vietnam, and Post-9/11 Wars ................... 120 Quantitative Analysis .............................................................................. 131 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 136 Chapter Five: Conclusion ............................................................................................... 140 War Taxes in the United States ........................................................................... 142 The Research Question in a Broader Empirical Context .................................... 144 iv Institutional Resilience and its Implications ....................................................... 153 Research Agenda: War Taxes and War Finance ................................................. 158 Concluding Thoughts .......................................................................................... 162 References ....................................................................................................................... 165 Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 187 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1. War Taxation for Major U.S. Wars by Conflict and Type, 1775-2015……6 Table 3.1. Means Tests for Income Taxes, 1934-1939 and 1940-2014………………70 Table 3.2. Probit Regression Results of War Tax on Income Tax……………………78 Table 3.3. Marginal Effect of Income Tax on War Tax at Different Values of the Independent Variable….……………………………………………………………...79 Table 3.4. Linear Regression Results on Tax Buoyancy……………………………..85 Table 3.5. Means Tests for Income Taxes, 1934-1939 and 1940-2014………………90 Table 3.6. Revenue Effects of Major Tax Bills, 1940-2012………………………….92 Table 3.7. Count of Tax Bill Motivations, 1945-2007……………………………….94 Table 4.1. Two-Sample Means Testing of Consumer Price Inflation Rates, 1934-1989 and 1990-2015………………………………………………………………………132 Table 4.2. Logit Regression Results Estimating Likelihood of War Tax, 1900- 2015…………………………………………………………………………………134
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