Tax evasion and financial accelerator: A corporate sector analysis for the US business cycle

Abstract

This paper investigates the consequences of willful tax noncompliance in the US corporate sector on the business cycle when financial frictions operate. In this setting, we simulate a risk shock that propagates its effects in the credit channel via a financial accelerator mechanism. In addition to emphasizing the role of tax evasion as a self-financing mechanism, the paper provides a twofold result, producing nonnegligible consequences for business cycle analysis. First, conditioned on risk shock, tax evasion strengthens the effects of the financial accelerator and amplifies macroeconomic fluctuations considerably. Second, endogenous tax evasion dynamics generates a reallocation of resources from productive to consumption uses over the business cycle.