In 1991 the Ethiopian Revolution Democratic Front (EPRDF) toppled the old ‘socialist’ regime that had ruled the country for seventeen years. In contrast to the previous policy regime of hard control, EPRDF initiated a wide range of reforms that covered not only the tax system but also the...

We argue the revenue potential from increasing tax rates on capital gains may be substantially greater than previously understood. First, many prior studies focus primarily on short-run taxpayer responses, and so miss revenue from gains that are deferred when rates change. Second, the...

This paper analyzes optimal pre-announced capital and labor income tax reforms under valuable and productive government spending. Our baseline optimal reform reveals that these model ingredients result in a reduction of welfare losses that occur when the reform is announced before its...

This paper examines the effects of estate tax repeal on charitable giving. Using data from a variety of sources, we conclude that outright repeal would reduce giving at death by about $5 billion per year, and giving during life by a similar amount. The resulting decline in giving, $10 billion...

We evaluate the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Combining reduced-form estimates from tax data with a global investment model, we estimate responses, identify parameters, and conduct counterfactuals. Domestic investment of firms with the mean tax change increases 20% versus a no-change baseline. Due...

This paper estimates the effect of a temporary and large (21 p.p.) value-added tax (VAT) cut along with anti-profiteering measures on food necessities during a period of high inflation in Argentina. Using barcode-level data across more than 3,000 supermarkets, we find that (1) absent the...

Die von der Bundesregierung geplante Steuerreform soll die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit deutscher Unternehmen stärken und den Standort Deutschland für in- und ausländische Investoren attraktiver machen. Berechnungen des ZEW und der Universität Mannheim zeigen indessen: Die Steuerentlastung der...

Ghana’s tax reforms constitute the major policy instrument needed to accelerate growth and poverty reduction. Over the past two decades, the government has consistently spent more revenue than it is able to generate and the gap is often financed with foreign aid which has perpetuated the...

The European Commission recently proposed to move towards a consolidated tax base for European multinational companies, to be allocated across EU member states through a system of formula apportionment. This paper argues that while the Commission's four alternative blueprints for company tax...

This paper focuses on the relationship between tax reforms and environmental quality in Italy. First, we analyse some of the characteristics of the tax system. Within a dynamic model, we estimate the marginal distortion introduced by different taxes and show that the system is far from being...