Current political discussions in Germany and other European countries illustrate the importance accorded to revenue and distribution effects of tax reforms. Whereas widely recognized concepts of effective tax measures can provide important insights into the incentives of taxation they do not...

"The economics workings of the corporate income tax remain controversial. Harberger's seminal 1962 article viewed the tax as raising the cost of capital used to produce corporate goods. But corporate goods can be and generally are made by non-corporate firms, suggesting that the corporate tax...