Can consumption taxes reduce inequality in developing countries? We combine household expenditure data from 31 countries with theory to shed new light on the redistributive potential and optimal design of consumption taxes. We use the place of purchase of each expenditure to proxy for informal...

This paper revisits the personal expenditure tax (PET), the most prominent version of a progressive consumption tax. The PET has a long intellectual tradition in economics, and the merits and demerits of this alternative to the personal income tax have been discussed at length. What has been...

The introduction of the VAT in Canada, initially in the form of the federal GST in 1991, did not signify a major change in the tax mix even after most provincial sales taxes also became VATs. Canadians do not pay much if any more in taxes on their consumption than they did 25 years ago. Although...

During the 2010-2019 decade, consumption taxes have risen in the vast majority of the EU Member States as a result of austerity measures, tax shifts as well as taxing transport and housing-related energy consumption. The redistributive impact of these policy changes remains mostly unexplored. In...