This essay analyzes the problem of corporate tax avoidance. It shows how the marginal efficiency cost of funds and optimal elasticity of taxable income measures can be used to analyze the problem and determine the proper scope of allowable tax planning. It then analyzes the optimal form of tax...

Non-tax legal rules regulating the workplace, the financial sector, real property, and many other areas affect the ability of governments to collect revenues and provide public goods. Yet tax-collection considerations rarely enter into economic analyses of non-tax legal rules. Usually,...

Climate policies vary widely across countries, with some countries imposing stringent emissions policies and others doing very little. When climate policies vary across countries, energy-intensive industries have an incentive to relocate to places with few or no emissions restrictions, an effect...

The current pricing mechanism for carbon in the EU, the EU emissions trading system, only covers 40 percent of emissions. Carbon taxation currently plays no role. The Commission has recently proposed to revise the energy tax system in the EU to include a carbon tax component. This paper...

The precautionary principle requires that we take additional actions to prevent harm when the harm from an activity is uncertain and possibly irreversible. This paper considers whether environmental or other Pigouvian taxes should be precautionary. Should environmental taxes be set higher than...

Criticizes the need to treat short sales against the box as realization events. Argues that the net welfare gain of such treatment is uncertain (under traditional Haig-Simons notions of equity) and that efficiency gains are dependent on views of stock trading.