The paper describes the evolution of the corporate stock and bond markets in Korea and the Government’s role in this evolution and its policy with regard to internationalization of the capital market. The paper analyzes problems encountered in gradually opening the Korean capital market to...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper describes how growing economic integration within the European Community increases the scope for any one EC country to impose adverse externalities on other member countries by manipulating its capital income taxes. After examining several alternatives to concerted tax harmonization,...

The Icelandic government has launched a review of the tax system, with a view to improving its income redistribution, growth orientation, and efficiency features, as well as increasing its revenue mobilization potential. It aims at minimizing detrimental effects on employment and growth, and at...

The classical corporate profits tax in the United States involves non-neutralities between: different sources of financing; different forms of business organization; and retaining or distributing earnings and may result in the U.S. investor being at a disadvantage vis-à-vis foreign investors....

This paper examines the possibility of ascertaining the welfare changes that occur when a consumption tax replaces an equal-yield income tax. It finds that those with saving/income ratios greater than the social saving/income ratio under the income tax will surely benefit and those with ratios...

Compared with its U.S. and U.K. counterparts, the Labor Tax Credit (LTC) is likely to have more limited effects on incentives for primary-earners to enter the labor force, because of the smaller size of the credit. Any significant increase in the LTC to strengthen its effect on the still large...

This paper highlights the significance of open-economy considerations in the analysis of tax reforms. It focuses on domestic and international consequences of revenue-neutral conversion between income and value-added tax systems. The principal result is that the direction of changes in key...

France's recent economic performance has been distinctly positive, supported by policy reforms over a number of years and a favorable monetary and external environment. The fiscal deficit has narrowed significantly in recent years. Improving long-term economic performance depends crucially on...