This paper extends the methodology first proposed by Ahmad and Stern for the design of tax reforms that are optimal at the margin. The extension centers on a sharper approximation of welfare measures. The original approach and its variant are illustrated in the case of the current Mexican tax...

In a tax-evasion model with profit tax, we reexamine and clarify the issues of neutrality and separability with imperfect detection of tax fraud. With this more realistic setting, we show that the profit tax is not necessarily neutral and the separability conclusion may not hold. Furthermore,...

The combined use of specific and ad valorem taxation as a policy response to the welfare losses caused by international oligopoly is explored. With Nash competition between countries, taxation is inferior to quantity control. In contrast, when countries cooperate production control and taxation...

A common problem of regional policy is the distribution of funds to regional units. To follow the specific purpose of this budgeting process in a rational way this is often done in a formula allocation on the basis of official statistics. In Germany, measures of active labour market policy...

This note considers the provision of incentives in public organizations that face the following three constraints. First, no lateral entry is possible. Second, the outside opportunities of bureaucrats are independent of their performance. Third, the organization cannot design incentive schemes...

The private exchange of charitable gifts (e.g. charity gift-cards) has recently become an important source of donations to charities. In this paper we study this new phenomenon using the classical model of private provision of public goods, modified to account for exchange of private gifts....

The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of corporate corruption in Cameroon with data of the national institute of statistics in Cameroon. I find out that, companies have devoted 0.747% and 1.56% of their turnover (companies' revenue) respectively to pay bribes and to give...

Standard economic analysis assumes the sets of public and private goods to be exogenously given. Yet societies very often choose the public-private mix, using resources to convert seemingly private goods into ones with public goods characteristics and vice versa. In practice, we see a...

This paper compares the technical efficiency of Brazilian public and private companies in water supply. To measure efficiency a stochastic production frontier model is estimated using two competitive distributions for the inefficiency error component: truncated normal and exponential. The...

The paper explores the effects of shadow economy on tax revenues, in the case of several African countries, based on a panel-model approach. The dataset covers the period 1999-2007. The main results reveal that the change in shadow economy has a significant and negative impact on change in tax...