Item type:Book, Open Access

Using LLMs to Study Biases in Tax Policy

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idp_wps_03_20260907_public.pdf (329.03 KB)

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2026-09-07

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Item type:Series, Open Access
IDP Working Paper Series
(Philipps-Universität Marburg)
The IDP Working Paper Series aims to disseminate preliminary findings from ongoing research conducted by members of the Inequality and Distributive Politics Research Team prior to formal publication. The team brings together scholars from the Institute of Political Science and the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, working on issues related to inequality, distributive politics, political representation, and political behavior.

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of LLMs to help code the progressivity of tax policies and thereby examine whether the tax policy-making process exhibits a bias towards the affluent. We construct a database that matches tax policy proposals in party manifestos to tax policies actually implemented, drawing on OECD Economic Surveys for Germany and the UK from the late 1990s to the 2020s. We code the progressivity of each tax pledge and each implemented tax policy using semi-automated methods. Our results suggest a post-electoral bias towards the affluent: The share of regressive tax policies is around 10pp larger among implemented policies than among those in the manifesto.

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Issued: 2026-09-07
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Is part of: https://doi.org/10.17192/openumr/688
Faculty
FB03:Gesellschaftsswissenschaft
Language
en
Data types
JournalArticle
Keywords
tax policyllmpolitical inequality
License
Attribution 4.0 International
URI
https://open.uni-marburg.de/handle/openumr/11681
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Pellicer, Miquel; Kuran, İbrahim; Wegner, Eva: Using LLMs to Study Biases in Tax Policy. : 2026-09-07.

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Attribution 4.0 International
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International

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Wegner, Eva

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Item type:Series, Open Access
IDP Working Paper Series
(Philipps-Universität Marburg)
The IDP Working Paper Series aims to disseminate preliminary findings from ongoing research conducted by members of the Inequality and Distributive Politics Research Team prior to formal publication. The team brings together scholars from the Institute of Political Science and the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, working on issues related to inequality, distributive politics, political representation, and political behavior.