The 'excess burden' of taxation represents an efficiency loss which must be compared with any perceived gains arising either from income redistribution or the non-transfer expenditure carried out by the government. An important property is that, under certain assumptions, it increases...

This paper reports estimates of the potential welfare effects of hypothetical increases in the petrol excise tax in New Zealand. Equivalent variations, for a range of household types and total expenditure levels, are obtained along with distributional measures. Household demand responses are...