Using a panel of 97 mostly developing and transitional countries for the period 1990-2011, this paper explores fiscal implications of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Em-ploying robust difference-in-difference specifications as well as semi-parametric methods, we find that...

The harmonized European value-added tax (VAT) is anything but a modern consumption tax that taxes all goods and services at a uniform rate. As exemplified by an analysis of the Dutch version, some 60% of the base is exempted, that is, not taxed on output but on inputs. This has serious...

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...

The Mirrlees Review recommends that commodity taxation should in general be uniform, but with some goods consumed in conjunction with labour supply (such as child care) left untaxed. This paper examines the validity of this claim in an optimal income tax framework. Contrary to the recommendation...

This paper is concerned with a policy oriented macroeconomic experiment involving an international economy with a relatively small home country and a large foreign country. It compares the economic performance of two alternative tax systems as a means to finance unemployment benefits: a...

If online transactions are tax-free, increased online shopping may lower tax rates as jurisdictions seek to reduce tax avoidance; but, if online firms remit taxes, online sales may put upward pressure on tax rates because internet sales help enforce destination-based taxes. I find that higher...

Technological innovations facilitating e-commerce have well-documented effects on consumer behavior and firm organization in the retail sector, but the effects of these new transaction technologies on fiscal systems remain unknown. By extending models of commodity tax competition to include...

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...

Taxing consumption in the digital economy poses unique challenges for fiscal authorities. Recent institutional reforms, such as states changing remittance rules for the sales and use tax following the Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, were enacted in order to increase tax...

What is the effect of e-commerce on the geographic distribution of local sales tax revenues? Using COVID-19 as a shock to online shopping and hand-collected high-frequency data on local sales tax revenue, we document an important shift in the state and local public finance landscape. As...