The manufacturing sector has contributed little to income growth and its share in total merchandise exports has been declining. Manufacturing has not brought much new employment, and most of the recent rise in manufacturing employment has been in the informal sector, where workers are not...

This article compares effective tax rates, in energy and carbon terms, on the full spectrum of energy use across the OECD, highlighting notable differences in the taxation of energy in OECD countries. The analysis strongly suggests that current taxes are not well geared towards attaining...

This paper uses the 1986 New Zealand tax reform as a ‘natural experiment’ to estimate the elasticity of taxable income for New Zealand. Adopting the methodology of Auten and Carroll (1999), elasticity estimates ranging from 0.34 to 0.52 are obtained. These results imply a significant...

This paper uses the 1986 New Zealand tax reform as a ‘natural experiment’ to estimate the elasticity of taxable income for New Zealand. Adopting the methodology of Auten and Carroll (1999), elasticity estimates ranging from 0.34 to 0.52 are obtained. These results imply a significant...

In a study of nine Asia-Pacific countries' real exchange rates, <link rid="b6">Chinn (2000)</link> finds some evidence in support of the <link rid="b1">Balassa (1964)</link> and <link rid="b20">Samuelson (1964)</link> hypothesis. His findings, however, are based on the application of a model containing several potentially restrictive simplifying assumptions to...

New evidence for 21 OECD countries shows that the distributional effects of energy taxes differ by energy carrier. On an expenditure basis, taxes on transport fuels are not regressive on average, as households in lower expenditure deciles spend a lower proportion of their expenditure on taxes on...

This paper examines the taxation of labour income in five key emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa (the “BIICS” countries). The paper highlights the key features of the taxation of labour income in these countries, and then uses this information to model the...

This paper investigates the merits of increasing work incentives for low-income workers by shifting part of the tax burden from social security contributions (SSC) to consumption taxes (specifically VAT) in 13 European OECD countries. Simulation results based on household budget survey microdata...

This paper identifies inequality patterns across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and provides new analysis of their policy and non-policy drivers. One key finding is that education and anti-discrimination policies, well-designed labor market institutions...

This book provides a comprehensive review of income inequality issues in the OECD in a cross-country setting. It presents a wealth of data and analysis on the formation of inequality and identifies groups of countries that share similar inequality patterns. It also reviews developments at the...