Belgium is characterised by a comparatively high tax wedge. Starting from the end of the 90's there has been a growing concern over the effect of high labour costs on the employment of low skilled workers. One of the most innovative measures implemented by the federal government is the targeted...

This paper reviews the literature on taxable-income elasticities, focusing primarily on empirical studies examining the U.S. tax changes of 1981, 1986, 1990, and 1993 and the bracket creep of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The paper first provides background on the importance of the elasticity...

Public policy designed to encourage home ownership has operated primarily through the federal income tax system in the United States. With multiple incentives for home-ownership, the income tax system is the main tool by which the federal government encourages families to become home-owners and...

Taxable (and broad) income elasticities are estimated using tax return data from 1979 to 2001. Data from the Continuous Work History Survey (CWHS) yield an estimated taxable income elasticity for the 1990s that is about half the corresponding 1980s estimate. Estimates from the full Statistics of...

By limiting their attention to the effect of capital gains tax on the price asked by mid-cycle sellers, Elton and Gruber (Review of Economics and Statistics v.52, 1970) overlook a parallel effect of capital loss credit on the bid price offered by mid-cycle buyers. We show that unequal marginal...

There is an on-going debate about tax competition or tax harmonization. The high-tax welfare states want to keep tax rates high so that they can continue to fund their social welfare programs. But they are losing business and investments to lower tax jurisdictions where governments let people...

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has a long-standing policy of controlling bank lending in Singapore dollars to nonresidents and to residents who use the funds outside Singapore. While the control may prevent the internationalization of the Singapore dollar and contain exchange rate...

In their effort to finance fiscal deficits at a reasonable cost, governments compete with other users of financial capital. Governments, however, are in the unique position that they are the only debt suppliers that can determine the taxation of debt instruments they issue. Following an overview...

Excess taxation of capital gains is a by-product of inflation in a tax system that uses nominal values as its basis. Studies by Feldstein, Green and Sheshinsky [JPE 1978] and Feldstein and Slemrod [NBER WP 234, 1978] analyze related macroeconomic distortions associated with corporate stock...