Serious research into the causes and implications of an aging population is a relatively recent phenomenon. Though several relevant issues of aging havereceived considerable attention in public and political discussions (especially in European countries and in Japan), the economics profession is...

Growing populations and economies have increased the public's awareness that the world's environmental resources are finite. The issues of global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer have given universal significance to what were once local and regional pollution problems. What is...

1. Tax Structure Developments -- 2. Coordination of Value-Added Taxes -- 3. Alcohol and Tobacco Taxes: Criteria for Harmonisation -- 4. Optimal Tax Perspective on Tax Coordination -- 5. Motor Vehicle Tax Harmonization -- 6. Price Discrimination and Tax Differences in the European Motor Industry...

Excise duties continue to be coveted sources of revenue, particularly in developing countries, because they are easy to collect and cause few economic distortions. In developed economies, on the other hand, excise duties are increasingly considered useful instruments for enhancing social and...

Instead of abolishing internal border controls in 1993, the European Union (EU) replaced them with VAT and statistical requirements that appear to be just as onerous. For Dutch businesses, the compliance costs of the new requirements are, on average, 5 % of the value of their intra-Eu trade....

The sixteen essays in this book were written to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Richard Musgrave and to commemorate the tenth anniversary of CES, the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich. Musgrave is considered to be a founding father or modern public economics. He belongs...

This paper provides estimates of the external costs of harmful alcohol use in the European Union (EU) and confronts them with the alcohol excise duty collections per adult and per litre of pure alcohol in the various Member States. In all but one Member State, drinkers do not appear to pay...

Since the late 1960s, the VAT has become one of the mainstays of the tax systems in over one hundred countries. Apparently, its revenue raising and neutrality properties make it an attractive tax in a rapidly integrating, high-tax world. Following an overview of VATs throughout the world, this...