We study commodity taxation in markets where firms, such as Internet Service Providers, energy suppliers and payment card platforms, adopt multi-part tariffs. We show that ad valorem taxes can correct underprovision and hence increase welfare, provided the government applies differentiated tax...

We integrate a market microstructure model with an exchange competition model with entry in which exchanges supply technological services that enhance market participation, and have market power. We find that technological services can be strategic substitutes or complements in platform...

Trade unions are often argued to cause allocative inefficiencies and to lower welfare. We analyze whether this evaluation is also justified in a Cournot-oligopoly with free but costly entry. If input markets are competitive and output per firm declines with the number of firms (business...

This paper explores the relationship between market accessibility and various participants’ welfare in an intermediated directed-search market. For a general class of meeting technologies, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which efficiency requires imperfect accessibility,...

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...

We develop a tax competition model that allows for the setting of both an origin-based and a destination-based commodity tax rate in the presence of avoidance and evasion. In the presence of evasion, jurisdictions will give cross-border shoppers tax preferential treatment, thus not fully...

We construct a theoretical model to capture the compensation and efficiency effects of globalization in a set up where the redistributive tax rate is chosen by the median voter. The model predicts that the two alternative modes of globalization- trade liberalization and financial openness- could...

Policy makers in the EU and elsewhere are concerned that unilateral carbon pricing induces carbon leakage through relocation of emission-intensive and trade-exposed industries to other regions. A common measure to mitigate such leakage is to combine an emission trading system (ETS) with...

Most governments will have to raise additional resources to deal with the aftermath of the corona crisis. This paper argues that excise duties on drinking, smoking, gambling, sugar-sweetened beverages, plastics, fossil fuels, motoring, telecoms and platforms are the preferred instruments. In...

We review the theoretical justification of consumption taxes in advanced economies, providing a systematic overview of the vast public finance literature exploring how goods and services should be taxed. Our discussion focuses on both the determinants of the optimal level of consumption taxation...