This paper revisits the relationship between fiscal size and economic growth. Our work differs from the empirical growth literature because this relationship depends explicitly on the efficiency of the public sector. We use a sample of 64 countries, both developed and developing, in four...

This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to examine the quantitative macroeconomic implications of counter-cyclical fiscal policy for France, Germany and the UK. The model incorporates real wage rigidity and consumption habits, as the particular market failures...

This paper provides a simple but general theoretical framework for analyzing simultaneous vertical and horizontal competition in excise taxes, which includes several previous contributions as special cases. It allows for both elastic individual demand for the taxed good, and cross-border...

This paper provides a legal and economic analysis of the European Commission's recent proposals for reforming the application of VAT to financial services, with particular focus on their 'third pillar', under which firms would be allowed to opt in to taxation on exempt insurance and financial...

This paper explores the causes and consequences of the remarkable rise of the value added tax (VAT), asking what has shaped its adoption and, in particular, whether it has proved an especially effective form of taxation. It is first shown that a tax innovation, such as the introduction of a VAT,...

This paper investigates whether OECD countries compete with each other over corporation taxes, and whether such competition can explain the fall in statutory tax rates in the 1980s and 1990s. We develop a model in which multinational firms choose their capital stock in response to an effective...

This paper considers a class of two-player dynamic games in which each player controls a one-dimensional variable which we interpret as a level of cooperation. In the base model, there is an irreversibility constraint stating that this variable can never be reduced, only increased. It otherwise...

The introduction of the Single Market resulted in a switch from destination to origin-based taxation of cross-border transactions by individuals. The theory of commodity tax competition predicts that this change should give rise to excise tax competition and thus intensify strategic interaction...

This paper considers a class of two-player dynamic games in which each player controls a one-dimensional variable which we interpret as a level of cooperation. In the base model, there is an irreversibility constraint stating that this variable can never be reduced, only increased. It otherwise...

This paper considers the optimal taxation of savings intermediation and payment services in a dynamic general equilibrium setting, when the government can also use consumption and income taxes. When payment services are used in strict proportion to final consumption, and the cost of...