This paper compares the welfare effects of ad valorem and per unit commodity taxation, in a model of oligopolistic interaction. Our main result is that, when the number of consumers is sufficiently high, per unit taxes welfare dominate ad valorem taxes.

We investigate the effectiveness of tax and transfer policies in correcting market distortions when the economy is imperfectly competitive. We perform this analysis in the context of an exchange model representing a bilateral oligopoly situation, which constitutes a particular example of a...