The paper analyses the revenue-raising, distributional and incentive effects of the personal tax system in Hungary from the start of the transitional tax reforms of 1988, and develops methods for estimating marginal indirect taxes. It evaluates the distributional impact of revenue-neutral...

This paper proposes a general framework for analysing commodity tax competition under destination and origin principles, based on three possible tax spillovers: the consumer price spillover, the producer price/terms of trade spillover, and rent spillovers. A model is presented which can be...

This paper analyses the changes to the tax and social security systems that have occurred since Czechoslovakia's `velvet revolution' in 1989. It shows how the tax system is moving to meet the requirements of a market economy. It suggests that a particularly high priority has to be given to...

Researchers debate whether environmental investments reduce firm value or can actually improve financial performance. We provide some first evidence on shareholder wealth effects of voluntary corporate environmental initiatives. Companies announcing membership in Climate Leaders and Ceres - two...

What should be the West's top priority for climate-change policy? This article is a revised and updated version of my talk to the Potsdam Global Sustainability Symposium (which drafted the Potsdam Declaration presented to the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference in Bali).

The incidence of taxation and the design of an optimal tax system have been extensively discussed in the public finance literature but mainly within a competitive market setting or within a homogenous good (Cournot type) oligopoly. In a differentiated product oligopoly, the effect of taxation...

This paper uses a new economic geography model to analyze tax competition between two countries trying to attract internationally mobile capital. Each government may levy a source tax on capital and a lump sum tax on fixed labor. If industry is concentrated in one of the countries, the analysis...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy-making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...

This paper provides factual evidence on the extent of public intervention in the Italian economy. It further illustrates the internal contradictions and weaknesses of public action in Italy. New policy proposals to solve old structural problems of the Bel Paese are then discussed. Among them, a...