This paper suggests a consumption-based direct tax, referred to here as a simplified alternative tax or SAT, as an alternative to the standard income tax for reforming socialist economies (RSEs). The paper consists of seven sections. Section I serves as an introduction. Section II outlines some...

Argentina has had a quarter century without growth at a time of rapid economic growth in the rest of the world. This paper looks at the role that public sector behavior, particularly government spending, taxation and deficit financing, may have had on the economic stagnation in Argentina....

The authors provide an empirical framework for assessing the effects of tax policy on an array of producer decisions about output supplies and input demands in Mexico, Pakistan, and Turkey. They specify and estimate a dynamic production structure model with imperfect competition for selected...

The idea of an optimal export tax on a commodity is based on the assumption that by imposing a tax, a country can improve its welfare whenit faces a downward-sloping demand curve for the commodity. The idea is thought to be particularly relevant to producers with large world market shares for...

How have tax systems, whose primary role is to raise resources to finance public expenditures, evolved in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union? The authors find that: (1) the ratio of tax revenue-to-GDP decreased largely due to a fall in revenue from corporate...

The author reviews the debate on the causes of Argentina?s economic collapse in late 2001 and 2002 and examines the measures needed to help restore sustainable growth. Some analysts stress fiscal imbalances, others overvaluation of the peso under the convertibility plan, and others external...

In a highly distorted economy such as Angola's, budget accounts can be misleading - because prices in the parallel market, including the exchange rate, represent up to 100 times official prices. Parallel prices are the real opportunity costs for consumers and guide them in their decisions. The...

Considerable interest has been expressed in recent years by tax theorists as well as practitioners, for the taxation of companies based on their cash flow. Unlike the equity-income tax base, which requires the deductibility of economic depreciation and debt financing costs, the cash-flow base...

The role of monetary balances in economic growth has long been a topic of macroeconomic research. This paper examines the role of real money balances in an aggregate production function of a developing economy, Colombia. Colombia is an interesting case to analyze for several reasons. First,...

In a closed economy, a commodity tax drives a wedge between the producer price and the consumer price. In open economies, intercountry differences in commodity taxation can induce two additional distortions: (1) Cross-country differences in consumer marginal rates of substitution (which result...