Like the theory of the second best that the 2006 congress marks, the VAT is now fifty years old. Judged by the extent … and speed of its spread around the world, and the revenue that it raises, the VAT would seem to have been a remarkable … prominent of these. One is the fear (raised mainly in the United States) that the VAT actually does too good a job of raising …

We estimate consumption dynamics in the G-7 economies, paying particular attention to the possibility of precautionary … consumption growth. As such, consumption in the G-7 economies is unlikely to be the engine that revives global growth. Differences … in the pace and timing of consumption moderation have implications for the evolution of global imbalances. With the U …

consumption-saving model with labor income risk and incomplete markets to relate income dynamics to consumption and welfare, and …

How does access to credit impact consumption volatility? Theory and evidence from advanced economies suggests that … greater household access to finance smooths consumption. Evidence from emerging markets, where consumption is usually more … volatile than income, indicates that financial reform further increases the volatility of consumption relative to output. We …

overall? Capacity limitations and integrity issues persist. The introduction of VAT heralded self-assessment, but in most … instances without being integrated with income tax administration. Rather, VAT administration was assigned to a separate …

of the VAT—and closer economic integration—in Brazil, the EU, India and elsewhere. This paper describes and compares two … recent proposals for forms of VAT intended to alleviate these difficulties: the VIVAT and the CVAT. Both enable the VAT chain … consumption at different rates) or introducing new scope for game-playing by the provinces. The key difference between them is …

This paper examines the reform of the main domestic consumption taxes initiated by the CEMAC and the WAEMU aimed at … reinforcing their economic integration. On the whole, compliance with the VAT is relatively weaker in the CEMAC than in the WAEMU …

Like any tax, the VAT is vulnerable to evasion and fraud. But its credit and refund mechanism does offer unique … forms of noncompliance distinctive to a VAT, considers how they can be addressed, and assesses evidence on their extent in …-stated, administrative measures alone may prove insufficient to deal with them, and a fundamental redesign of the VAT treatment of intra …

developing countries to omit all but a few services from the tax base. Administrative constraints are the main reason why the VAT …