Marginal commodity tax reforms: a survey

We summarize the main features and results of the literature on marginal commodity tax reforms as initiated by Ahmad and Stern (1984) and developed further by Yitzhaki and Thirsk (1990). We establish new links with other fields of research, namely the literature on the use of equivalence scales and the one on poverty measurement. We also critically examine some issues associated with the implementation of marginal tax reforms, with special refernce to the estimation of welfare weights and of revenue effects.