Today's highly complicated tax codes have led economists and policy makers depend on simplified summary measures in order to understand how taxes affect the economy. Studies of the effective tax rate--that is, a measurement of the net amount of tax levied on certain economic activities--provide...

The paper discusses the main arguments for destination- versus origin-based commodity taxation in the European Community's Internal Market. Destination-based solutions necessarily distort commodity trade in the Community because final con-sumer purchases can only be taxed in the origin country....

This paper suggests that the optimal tax system should favour market-produced services which are close substitutes for home-produced services. First, we modify the classical Corlett-Hague rule for optimal commodity taxation by showing that it may be optimal to impose a relatively low tax rate on...