Fiscal experts have for years proposed a holy trinity of tax reform options for developing countries: broader bases, lower rates, and better administration. The review in this paper of fifty years of experience suggests that what might be called the BBLR approach - broader bases and lower rates...

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we survey the way in which the tax burden on labour has been proxied for in recent multi-country macro-economic studies. Second, we critically evaluate these proxies. Finally, we examine to what extent the conclusions of some studies change if some...

This paper proposes a method for evaluating the impact of tax reform on tax revenues and the distribution of the tax burden. The technique consists of decomposing actual revenue relative to potential revenue into components attributable to (i) changes in the tax rate structure (ii) deductions...

While there is a large and growing number of studies on the determinants of corporate tax rates, the literature has so far ignored the fact that the behavior of governments in setting tax rates is often best described as a discrete choice decision problem. We set up an empirical model that...

The employment effects of an ecological tax reform depend decisively on the presence of a profit tax and on the extent to which profits are taxed. This is shown in a model where firms have monopoly power on product markets and bargain over wages with unions on the labour market. In the setting,...

While there is a large and growing number of studies on the determinants of corporate tax rates, the literature has so far ignored the fact that the behavior of governments in setting tax rates is often best described as a discrete choice decision problem. We set up an empirical model that...

When we analyse the labour market consequences of labour tax reforms in a model of firm-union wage bargaining, minor changes in the formulation of the union`s fallback option can have drastic effects. This paper compares two variants of the model in which either workers have no reemployment...

The paper presents an endogenous growth economy with a representation of the tax rate system in the Baltic countries. Assuming that government spending is a given fraction of output, the paper shows how a flat tax system balanced between labor and corporate tax rates can be second best optimal....

In this paper we offer a meta-analysis approach to (simulation) studies on environmental tax reform (ETR). The underlying studies look both at environmental effects (e.g. reduction in CO2 emission) and economic effects (e.g. change in gross domestic product) following such a tax reform. The...