This paper applies to Switzerland an indicator of the sustainability of fiscal policies developed by BLANCHARD and others for the OECD. A fiscal policy is sustainable if it stabilizes the debt/GDP ratio over a certain period of time; thus, the primary surplus must cover the interest payments on...

The author develops global indexes of the progressivity and the redistributive effects of taxes and transfers, based on Lorenz curves and Gini indexes. He simulates the introduction in Switzerland of a regressive VAT with a 15% tax rate, in the context of the existing progressive federal income...