Least-squares estimates of the response of gasoline consumption to a change in the gasoline price are biased toward zero, given the endogeneity of gasoline prices. A seemingly natural solution to this problem is to instrument for gasoline prices using gasoline taxes, but this approach tends to...

Atkinson and Stiglitz show that with weakly separability, differential commodity taxes are unnecessary given an optimal nonlinear income tax. Deaton showed that with an optimal linear progressive income tax, commodity taxes are superfluous under weakly separable and linear Engel curves. Using...

This paper identifies conditions under which, starting from any tax distorting equilibrium, destination- and origin-based indirect tax-harmonizing reforms are potentially Pareto improving in the presence of global public goods. The first condition (unrequited transfers between governments)...

This paper analyzes the effects of specific and ad valorem taxation in an industry with downstream and upstream oligopoly. We find that in the short run, i.e. when the number of firms in both markets is exogenous, the results concerning tax incidence tend to be qualitatively similar to models...

The literature on indirect tax reforms in pollution-ridden economies is quite limited. This paper, using a model of a small open economy with production and consumption generated pollution, considers the welfare implications of tax reforms within an integrated structure of consumption and...

An important question is whether VAT exemption of financial services is a desirable property or whether it is justified only due to practical and administrative necessity. This paper singles out a number of financial services for discussion of this issue in a context allowing for other taxes and...

International trade policy analysis has tended to focus on the production side of general equilibrium, with policies such as a tariff or carbon tax affecting international and internal income distributions through a Heckscher-Ohlin nexus of factor intensities and factor endowments. Here I move...

We consider an optimal commodity taxation problem under a consumption target and prove the existence of an optimal solution for the problem. This optimal solution obeys taxation rules that are contrary to standard taxation rules such as the inverse-elasticity rule. We also verify the necessary...

This paper points to the important role which the elasticity of aggregate capital supply with respect to the net rate of return to capital plays for the efficiency of policymaking in a decentralized economy with mobile capital and spillovers among jurisdictions. In accordance with previous...

Saez (2010) introduced an influential estimator that has become known as the bunching estimator. Using this method one can get an estimate of the taxable income elasticity from the bunching pattern around a kink point. The bunching estimator has become popular, with a large number of papers...