The introduction of containerization triggered complementary technological and organizational changes that revolutionized global freight transport. Despite numerous claims about the importance of containerization in stimulating international trade, econometric estimates on the effects of...

This paper examines the effect of demand on productivity. We exploit the Energy Policy Act of 2005 as a natural experiment which generated plausibly exogenous variation in the capacity of ethanol plants to establish the causal effect of demand on productivity within the corn sector. Using...

This paper assesses the merits of using business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth-enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper demonstrates...

This paper considers the effects of complementarity in private production between private and public inputs on optimal fiscal policy under the objective of growth maximization. Using an endogenous growth model with public finance and CES technology, it derives two central results. First, it...

Effective marginal tax rates can be very different from the statutory rate and vary across firms, reflecting such factors as the extent and nature of taxable deductions (losses, depreciation), asset and ownership structures, and debt/equity financing. We estimate firm-specific EMTRs and related...

Effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs) can be very different from the statutory rate and vary across firms, reflecting such factors as the extent and nature of taxable deductions (losses, depreciation), asset and ownership structures, and debt/equity financing. We estimate firm-specific EMTRs and...

We consider the optimal education policies of a small economy whose government has a limited budget. Initially, the economy is closed and the government chooses its education policy to maximize welfare under autarky. Then the economy trades with the rest of the world. Lastly, the government...

This paper reviews the existing evidence on the effects of tax reforms on output levels and growth over the short and long run from different strands of the literature. It develops and applies criteria to evaluate the usefulness of ex-post estimates to predict the effects of tax reforms ex-ante....