This paper discusses the implications of rents and regulations which support them for the design of indirect taxes such as VATS. Intuition suggests high tax rates on industries or products with rents; but we argue that whether rents are natural (due to fixed factors) or market structure related...

This paper analyzes the relative importance of the major factors underlying the post-1978 increase in China's agricultural productivity. We present a method for assessing the role of price increases and strengthened individual incentives due to the introduction of the responsibility system. Data...