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...

An earlier paper titled "Non-linear effects of tax changes on output: The role of the initial level of taxation," estimated tax multipliers using (i) a novel dataset on value-added taxes for 51 countries (21 industrial and 30 developing) for the period 1970-2014, and (ii) the so-called narrative...

As is broadly recognized, the straightforward application of the Diamond-Mirrlees (1971) production efficiency theorem implies that when lump-sum taxation is not available, then it is optimal for the government in a small open economy to rely on taxes on the net demand of households rather than...