This paper provides a primer on the fiscal implications of climate change, in particular the policies for responding to it. Many of the complicated challenges that arise in limiting climate change (through greenhouse gas emissions mitigation), and in dealing with the effects that remain (through...

A fundamental issues in designing any fiscal regime for non-renewable resources is the balance between rent taxes and royalties. This paper reviews the core issues that arise, in terms of both efficient rent extraction and correcting various market failures. Issues of asymmetric information, for...

Explains features of the U.S. tax system that may prove instructive for Britain and the EU, especially as they relate to federalism. Discusses low tax rates, absence of a VAT or national consumption tax, lack of interstate equalization, subsidization of low earnings under the earned income credit.

This paper considers what it might mean to describe the VAT as a "money machine," tests whether it is one, and asks if it might consequently be wise not to adopt it. We find broadly persuasive evidence, using panel data for the OECD, for a "weak form" of the money–machine hypothesis: that...

Like any tax, the VAT is vulnerable to evasion and fraud. But its credit and refund mechanism offers unique opportunities for abuse, and this has recently become an urgent concern in the European Union (EU). This paper describes the main forms of noncompliance distinctive to a VAT, considers how...

This paper sets out some tools for understanding the performance of the value added tax (VAT). Applying a decomposition of VAT revenues (as a share of GDP) to the universe of VATs over the last twenty years, it emerges that developments have been driven much less by changes in standard rates...

A key feature of the recent EU and OECD standards for good behavior in international taxation is a presumption against preferential tax regimes (such as those offering advantageous treatment to non-residents or enterprises not active in the domestic market), which are seen as especially...

This paper explores the role of trade instruments in globally efficient climate policies, focusing on the central issue of whether border tax adjustment (BTA) is warranted when carbon prices differ internationally. It shows that tariff policy has a role in easing cross-country distributional...