There is only limited evidence of how small firms respond to size-based regulations applied in various countries. We study this question by examining the value-added tax (VAT) threshold in Finland. We find sizable bunching of firms in the sales distribution just below the exemption threshold,...

In this paper we study the effects of various tax schedule discontinuities on the behavior of small firms using high-quality and population-wide tax register data from South Africa. We use the bunching method to analyse how these discontinuities affect the firm-size distribution. We first...

Studying very detailed micro data collected around two different VAT reforms in Europe, we show that tax incidence is heavily dependent on the characteristics of the price-setting firms. The reforms generated bimodal price-change distributions; nearly all independent restaurants left prices...

There is only limited evidence of how small firms respond to size-based regulations applied in various countries. We study this question by examining the value-added tax (VAT) threshold in Finland. We find sizable bunching of firms in the sales distribution just below the exemption threshold,...

Various types of size-based regulations for firms are typical in most countries (tax schedules, accounting rules, health and safety standards etc.). However, there is only limited evidence of how owners of small firms respond to such rules, and what are the underlying mechanisms behind the...

We analyze price responses to large restaurant VAT rate reductions in two different European countries. Our results show that responses in the short and medium run were clustered around two focal points of zero passthrough and full pass-through. Differences between independent restaurants and...

This paper shows that prices respond more to increases than to decreases in Value-Added Taxes (VATs). First, using all VAT reforms from 1996 to 2015 across all European countries we show that prices respond 3 to 4 times more to VAT increases than decreases. Second, using a plausibly exogenous...

This paper shows that prices respond more to increases than to decreases in Value-Added Taxes (VATs). First, using two plausibly exogenous VAT changes, we show that prices respond twice as much to VAT increases than to VAT decreases. Second, we show that this asymmetry results in higher...

This paper provides causally plausible estimates of the effects of consumption taxes in a service sector on prices and demand for restaurant services. We utilize a large VAT reform affecting restaurant meals, where the VAT rate was cut from 22% to 13% in 2010 in Finland. By comparing with...