Getting tax and transfer systems to efficiently deliver sufficient revenues to achieve macroeconomic targets, address goals in re-distribution and social welfare, encourage employment, accommodate business-competitiveness concerns and incorporate environmental issues is difficult. In Australia,...

This paper considers questions about the implications of rising inequality for the theory and practice of public finance. It begins by addressing fundamental reasons why the distribution of income or wealth on an annual basis before taxes and transfers offers insufficient information: (1) it...

Global impact assessment of unilateral climate policies is commonly based on multi-sector, multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) models that are calibrated to consistent accounts of production, consumption, and bilateral trade flows. However, global economic databases such as GTAP...

This paper presents the potential benefits and challenges of enhanced international co-ordination on carbon pricing and outlines the different types and levels of co-ordination that are available for national and sub-national governments. These levels include, inter alia, facilitating new...

Elf Euroländer haben beschlossen, auf Basis eines EU-Richtlinienentwurfs eine Finanztransaktionssteuer einzuführen. Der Autor untersucht hier das zugrunde liegende Konzept und die Gestaltungsparameter. Die verzerrende Wirkung dieser Steuer hält er für gering, das Aufkommen wird wohl nicht...

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

This paper provides cross-country empirical evidence on the productivity of bank transaction taxes (BTTs). Our data set comprises six Latin American countries that have levied BTTs since the late 1980s: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. We find that, for a given tax rate,...

This paper assesses the design of the air pollution tax in conjunction with a stringency analysis of the emission concentration limits in the Czech Republic. The analysis draws upon a detailed database containing environmental reporting by industrial stationary sources. The assessment of the...

Carbon pricing helps countries steer their economies towards and along a carbon-neutral growth path. This paper considers how the design of carbon pricing instruments affects their effectiveness, efficiency and feasibility. Design choices matter both for taxes and Emissions Trading Systems...