There is little doubt that the step towards a monetary union in Europe will increase both the distortionary effects of existing differences in national tax systems and the intensity of tax competition for internationally mobile commodity and factor tax bases. This paper discusses selected issues...

An optimal commodity tax approach is taken to compare trade taxes and VATs when some commodities are produced informally. Trade taxes apply to all imports and exports, including intermediate goods while the VAT applies only to sales by the formal sector and imports. The VAT can achieve...

Because of the upswing in electronic commerce via the Internet, governments in the European Union and the United States have been discussing the shaping of an effective system of turnover taxation in cyberspace since the late 1990s, but have failed to agree on a definite tax system. An analysis...

This paper is concerned with a policy oriented macroeconomic experiment involving an international economy with a relatively small home country and a large foreign country. It compares the economic performance of two alternative tax systems as a means to finance unemployment benefits: a...