This paper examines tax arbitrage in the market for municipal bonds. It poses a puzzle for the literature, however, in that we find little evidence of municipal bond tax arbitrage by non-financial corporations. Even among those firms engaged in arbitrage, many firms do less than a safe-harbor...

In 2001, the IRS issued a ruling allowing firms to engage in nontaxable real estate investment trust (REIT) spin-offs. In a REIT spin-off, a corporation places real estate assets into a subsidiary, which it then distributes to shareholders as a REIT. A nontaxable spin-off triggers no immediate...

This paper examines the impact on asset prices from a reduction in the long-term capital gains tax rate using an equilibrium approach that considers both demand and supply responses. We demonstrate that the equilibrium impact of capital gains taxes reflects both the capitalization effect (i.e.,...

An influential literature on the effects of marginal tax rates on the behavior of the rich has claimed that the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net of tax share is very high possibly exceeding one. These high estimated elasticities imply that cutting taxes on the rich does not...

This paper examines the introduction of Direct Broadcast Satellites as an alternative to cable television and the welfare gains such satellites generated for consumers. The extent to which satellites compete with cable has become an important issue in the debate over re-regulation of cable...

This paper reexamines the responsiveness of taxable income to changes in in marginal tax rates using detailed compensation data on several thousand corporate executives from 1991 to 1995. The data confirm that the higher marginal rates of 1993 led to a significant decline in taxable income. This...

The Internet has the potential to significantly reduce search costs by allowing consumers to engage in low-cost price comparisons online. This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact that the rise of Internet comparison shopping sites has had for the prices of life insurance in the...

This paper estimates the relative price sensitivity of individuals' choice of whether to buy computers online versus in retail stores using a new data source on the computer purchase behavior of more than 20,000 people. To estimate the degree of competition between the two channels, the paper...

Conventional estimates of the impact of taxes on investment may be seriously biased by measurement error in the cost of capital. The existence and size of such error, however, has not been documented. Using panel data on different types of capital equipment, this paper provides direct evidence...

Using data on the prices of capital goods, this paper shows that much of the benefit of" investment tax incentives does not go to investing firms but rather to capital suppliers through" higher prices. The reduction in the cost of capital from a 10 percent investment tax credit" increases...