Is Analytical Tax Research Alive and Kicking? – Insights from 2000 until 2022

This literature review evaluates the development and impact of analytical tax research (ATR) from 2000 until 2022. Based on 345 research papers, we (1) identify emerging and declining research topics in the area of ATR, (2) examine the trends in publication outlets and author teams, and (3) analyze citation metrics at both the level of articles and authors to measure perception and impact of ATR. First, we find that rather new topics, such as the impact of taxation on entrepreneurship, innovation and R&D, have begun to attract attention. Second, tax journals are not the preferred outlet for ATR and author teams exhibit a decreasing gender imbalance. Third, citation metrics are highly centered on specific publications and individual authors. Moreover, publications that appeared in economics and finance journals generate disproportionately large citation numbers compared to those that were published in tax, accounting and business research journals. Authors from Anglo-American institutions have significantly more citations than researchers from German-speaking countries. We find that ATR does not form a closed community. It unites researchers from different backgrounds based on their—sometimes nonrecurring—thematic interest in the effects of taxation on economic decisions.