China is the most decentralized country in the world in terms of expenditures shares, with subnational governments responsible for 85 percent of government spending. Limited revenue autonomy and insufficient intergovernmental transfers have led to large unfunded mandates and a build-up of debt...

Several cities in the U.S. have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in an attempt to improve public health and raise revenue. On July 1, 2017, Oakland, California introduced a tax of one cent per ounce on SSBs. In this paper, we estimate the impact of the tax on retail prices,...

In an effort to increase living organ donation, 15 states passed tax deductions and 1 a tax credit to help defray potential medical, lodging and wage loss costs between 2004 and 2008. To assess the impact of these policies on living donation rates, we used a differences-in-differences strategy...

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...

How important is the enforcement of political rights in new democracies? We use the enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves following the American Civil War to study this question. Critical to our strategy, black suffrage was externally enforced by the U.S. Army in ten Southern states during...

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...

Rational choice theories of electoral participation stress that an individual's decision to vote depends on her expected net benefit from doing so. If this instrumental motive is relevant, then turnout should be higher in elections where more is at stake. We test this prediction, by studying how...

A 1999 reform allowed Italian Mayors to partially substitute a more accountable source of tax revenue (the property tax) with a less transparent one (a surcharge on the personal income tax). Theoretical analysis suggests this should give incompetent Mayors a less costly way to hide themselves,...

This paper addresses the problem of partial tax coordination among regional or national sovereign governments in a repeated game setting. We show that partial tax coordination is more likely to prevail if the number of regions in a coalition subgroup is smaller and the number of existing regions...