This paper critiques the arguments put by the Howard Government for an unadulterated, flat rate GST policy, by taking the characterisation of the current wholesale sales tax (WST) as an outdated tax without design or logic, ans showing this view to be historically wrong and superficial. It does...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment; and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programmes. We argue that the heart of...

In a dynamic optimizing model with costly tax collection, a tax cut by one nation creates positive externalities for the rest of the world if initial public debt stocks are positive. By reducing tax collection costs, current tax cuts boost the resources available for current private consumption,...

Recent reforms in New Zealand have focused attention on the achievement of well-specific objectives for monetary and fiscal policy. The Reserve Bank Act requires that monetary policy be directed towards maintenance of inflation in the 0-2 per cent range. The Fiscal Responsibility Act specifies a...

A microeconomic theoretical model shows that two factors - the compensation and progressivity effects - produce the shifting (if any) of tax rates on wage formation. From an analytical viewpoint, they may be positive or negative and of equal or different sign. A microfounded nested macroeconomic...

Difficulties in European fiscal harmonization will mainly depend on present inter-country differences in effective rather than scheduled tax rates and tax structures. This paper therefore tries to evaluate the historical and current heterogeneities and similarities which characterize not only de...