This paper uses all Value Added Tax (VAT) changes across all EU Member States from 1988 to 2016 to estimate the effect of VATs on trade flows. We find small elasticities of trade flows with respect to VATs, in spite of some of the VAT changes being substantial. We estimate substantially smaller...

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...

In this paper we evaluate the incidence of a large cut in value-added taxes (VAT) for French sit-down restaurants. In contrast to previous studies that focus on prices only, we estimate its effect on four groups: workers, firm owners, consumers and suppliers of material goods. Using a...

This paper estimates the effect of a temporary and large (21 p.p.) value-added tax (VAT) cut along with anti-profiteering measures on food necessities during a period of high inflation in Argentina. Using barcode-level data across more than 3,000 supermarkets, we find that (1) absent the...

In many countries, controlling shareholders are accused of tunneling, transferring resources from companies where they have few cash flow rights to ones where they have more cash flow rights. Quantifying the extent of such tunneling, however, has proven difficult because of its illicit nature....

A debt trap occurs when someone takes on a high-interest rate loan and is barely able to pay back the interest, and thus perpetually finds themselves in debt (often by re-financing). Studying such practices is important for understanding financial decision-making of households in dire...