Hauser’s Law: There are Draconian Constraints on the Ability of Higher Taxes to Generate Fresh Revenues

Publication Date: January 2008

Publisher: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

Author(s): W. Kurt Hauser; David Ranson

Research Area: Banking and finance

Keywords: Taxes

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

W. Kurt Hauser is a San Francisco investment economist who published findings which imply that there are draconian constraints on the ability of higher taxes to generate fresh revenues. In a Wall Street Journal article in 1993, he stated that “no matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5 percent of GDP.” The economics of taxation will be moribund until economists accept and explain Hauser’s law.