We present a framework to identify and evaluate marginal tax reforms when merit good arguments and environmental concerns are given explicit consideration. It is applied to the Norwegian indirect tax system for 1999. The analysis shows that the reform passed in Parliament in November 2000 had a...

The paper assesses the distributional and efficiency/disincentive aspects of the Greek indirect tax system, which provides 60% of total tax revenue. The marginal welfare costs of broad commodity groups were computed to identify welfare-improving directions of reform. The disincentive effects...

We develop a framework for economy-wide modelling of value-added tax systems. Our framework models a number of complexities of VAT systems as they are implemented by tax agencies. In particular, we model multiple rates, multiple exemptions, multiple degrees of refundability across commodity...

We develop a framework for economy-wide modelling of value-added tax systems. Our framework models a number of complexities of VAT systems as they are implemented by tax agencies. In particular, we model multiple rates, multiple exemptions, multiple degrees of refundability across commodity...

Non-uniform indirect taxes treat equals and those unequal differently (horizontal inequity and vertical redistribution). Horizontal inequity is caused by taste differences among similar households, but some excises are designed to reflect social, not revealed, preferences. We apply two...

We build a theoretical model to study whether a minimum wage can be welfare-improving if itis implemented in conjunction with an optimized nonlinear income tax. We consider this issuein a framework where search frictions on the labor market generate unemployment. Workersdiffer in productivity...

The literature argues that Post and Hold (PH) laws facilitate tacit collusive price-setting behavior among suppliers of alcoholic beverages. Yet there is no explicit empirical test of this claim. We specify and estimate a structural model designed to identify the extent to which PH laws induce...

The central purpose of this paper is to introduce a new political economy explanation to modern Social Security Systems. This approach is based on the Single-Mindedness Theory (SMT), which assumes that the more single-minded groups are able to exert a greater power of influence on Governments...

The paper studies optimal taxation (subvention) when tourism is associated with „multiple externalities“, using a simple dynamic model of a small open economy, which is completely specialized in the production of tourism services and populated by a large number of intertemporally optimizing...

I study a class of differential games of pollution control with profit functions that are polynomial in the global pollution stock. Given an emissions path satisfying mild regularity conditions, a simple polynomial ambient transfer scheme is exhibited that induces it in Markov-perfect...