There is a large empirical literature on policy measures targeted at children but surprisingly very little theoretical foundation to ground the debate on the optimality of the different instruments. In the present paper, we examine the merit of targeting children through two general policies,...

Optimal policy rules--including those regarding income taxation, commodity taxation, public goods, and externalities--are typically derived in models with homogeneous preferences. This article reconsiders many central results for the case in which preferences for commodities, public goods, and...

This paper shows that under imperfect competition the welfare effects of indirect tax harmonization may depend crucially on whether taxes are levied by the destination or the origin principle. In a standard model of imperfect competition, while harmonization always makes at least one country...

Firms compete in model of horizontal differentiation a la Hotelling. They use two-part tariffs but the market is such that, in equilibrium, it is not fully covered (firms are then local monopolies). The question we adressed in this paper is to determine what kind of subsidies are the best...

This paper presents evidence from three French VAT reforms showing that tax shifting on prices operates differently upwards and downwards. This may appear as a paradox when reading usual studies on price shifting. This paper puts forward two different asymmetric effects. The first one is linked...

The point of this paper is to measure empirically the distribution of the commodity tax burden between consumers and producers. For that purpose, two French reforms are studied. These reforms are steep decreases of the VAT rate on housing repair services on the one hand, and on new car sales on...

This note reexamines the growth effects of commodity taxation and a manufacturing subsidy. By incorporating endogenous labor supply into a variety expansion model following Grossman and Helpman (1991), we derive new results. First, if households consider leisure to be important, an increase in...

This paper analyzes optimal differential commodity taxation, together with optimal nonlinear income taxation, in order to deal with positional preferences. It also derives the optimal public provision of private goods both when differential commodity taxation is feasible and when it is not. It...

Using the example of geographic borders, I demonstrate how the permeability of lines in the tax system and the ability of the tax authority to reduce tax evasion across lines are essential determinants of the optimal commodity tax policy.

Firms compete in model of horizontal differentiation a la Hotelling. They use two-part tariffs but the market is such that, in equilibrium, it is not fully covered (firms are then local monopolies). The question we adressed in this paper is to determine what kind of subsidies are the best...