The paper analyses how equilibrium adjustments of the wage rate affect the scope for tax rate reductions when the government experiences an exogenous increase in non-tax revenues. It shows within a stylized model that increased revenue in the form of a tradable will increase the wage rate, which...

Tradable black (CO2) and green (renewables) quotas gain in popularity and stringency within climate policies of many OECD countries. The overlapping regulation through both instruments, however, may have important adverse economic implications. Based on stylized theoretical analysis and...

In conducting economic policy, governments generally face conflicts in various objectives, e.g. between efficiency and equity. In Norway, one objective of energy politics has been to reduce electricity consumption, and several tax increases have been proposed. Whether this objective may be in...

This paper analyses the general equilibrium relationship between increases in tax financed public employment and total employment, emphasizing one income effect: Reallocating employment from the private to the public sector reduces non-labour income in the form of profits distributed to workers,...

Official forecasts for oil revenues and the burden of pensioners are used to estimate forward-looking fiscal policy rules for Norway and compared with permanent-income and bird-in-hand rules. The results suggest that fiscal reactions have been partial forward-looking with respect to the rising...

A number of European countries changed their tax system in the early 1990s along the lines of the US tax reform act of 1986. After the reforms marginal tax rates were generally lower, and mortgage interest deductions less generous. At the same time a long period of house appreciation started in...

We use a CGE model to estimate the social cost of a marginal increase in public expenditure in Norway. Norway exemplifies an economy with high taxes. Distortionary taxes imply wedges between the market prices and the corresponding shadow prices. The shadow prices are unobservable, which is the...

This paper analyses the effects of so-called "green" tax reforms on a small, open economy producing an imperfect substitute for foreign goods, using an intertemporal general equilibrium model. The labour market is characterised by union wage setting, and a fixed exchange rate implies wage...

Indirect taxes such as value added taxes (VAT) generate a substantial part of tax revenue in many countries. This paper analyses welfare effects of different reforms in the Norwegian system of indirect taxation. The main reform studied is the introduction of a uniform VAT rate on all goods and...

This paper analyses the non-environmental welfare costs of an environmental tax reform using a numerical intertemporal general equilibrium model for the Norwegian economy. The tax reform is revenue neutral such that an increase in the carbon tax rate is accompanied by a reduction in the payroll...