We examine whether consumers bear corporate taxes through higher prices. Using data on the gas prices of German gas stations and local variation in business tax rates, we find that higher business taxes increase consumer prices, indicating corporate taxes fall partly on consumers. Prices...

Like any tax, the VAT is vulnerable to evasion and fraud. But its credit and refund mechanism does offer unique opportunities for abuse, and this has recently become an urgent concern in the European Union (EU). This paper describes the main forms of noncompliance distinctive to a VAT, considers...

This paper provides causally plausible estimates of the effects of consumption taxes in a service sector on prices and demand for restaurant services. We utilize a large VAT reform affecting restaurant meals, where the VAT rate was cut from 22% to 13% in 2010 in Finland. By comparing with...

In July 2020, the UK government reduced the VAT rate on hospitality services from 20% to 5%, as response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We compile a novel dataset of detailed hotel room characteristics around this policy action in order to estimate how much the tax cut was passed on to consumers via...

There is only limited evidence of how small firms respond to size-based regulations applied in various countries. We study this question by examining the value-added tax (VAT) threshold in Finland. We find sizable bunching of firms in the sales distribution just below the exemption threshold,...

Various types of size-based regulations for firms are typical in most countries (tax schedules, accounting rules, health and safety standards etc.). However, there is only limited evidence of how owners of small firms respond to such rules, and what are the underlying mechanisms behind the...

In this work we deal with the theory of price determination in Steuart's writings; in particular with the concept of Double competition. The background is the evolution of the concept of market during the 18th century. Steuart proposed a theoretical construction in order to tackle the problem of...