One key objective of tax‐based fiscal consolidations which is too often disregarded in publicdebate is to minimise economic distortions. This paper uses a computable generalequilibrium model to gauge these potential distortions by calculating the marginal cost ofpublic funds (MCF) for EU...

There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an "optimal" tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax...