This paper investigates the relationship among transaction taxes, high-frequency trading (HFT), and market quality. We use the agent-based modeling (ABM) approach to dynamically assess the impact of transaction taxes on market quality with and without high-frequency trading. Preliminary tests...

This paper evaluates the effect of the introduction of the ITF on Spanish shares in secondary markets, focusing on the potential costs. For this purpose, it considers several dimensions of liquidity (measured through the bid-ask spread and the Amihud ratio), volatility (both intraday and...

Exchange ownership in the U.S. is often characterized as excessively concentrated. This leads to a concern that such concentration may prevent peripheral exchanges from mitigating adverse selection costs associated with low-latency arbitrage. We examine this concern using low-latency...

In recent years, UK housing policy has sought to restrict investment behaviour and increase the homeownership rate. This paper contributes to the literature by estimating the effect of a 3% additional transaction tax, known as stamp duty land tax (SDLT), on the Buy-to-Let (BTL) market in the UK....

Many governments have encouraged low-income housing; however, affordability concerns for themiddle class are often overlooked. In 2005 the Shanghai government began to promote the supply of middle-class houses (i.e., mid-sized houses at reasonable prices) with the introduction of relative lower...

Financial markets channel savings to productive investments and provide insurance against liquidity shocks. We analyze the optimal taxation of these two activities when the government cannot directly observe agents' endowments and consumption, but only their financial markets investments and...

Hong Kong introduced a Tobin property tax—the Special Stamp Duty (SSD) Policy—in 2010, which substantially increased the selling costs of short-term property holders. This study examines the effectiveness of this Tobin property tax in curbing speculation and cooling down the market. We find...

This paper characterizes the optimal transaction tax in an equilibrium model of competitive financial markets. As long as investors hold heterogeneous beliefs that are not related to their fundamental trading motives and the planner calculates welfare using any single belief, a strictly positive...

The promotion of both market fairness and efficiency has long been a goal of securities market regulators worldwide. Accelerated digital disruption and abusive trading behaviors, such as the GameStop mania, prompt regulatory changes. It is unclear how this "democratization" of trading power...

We investigate the impact of the French 2012 financial transaction tax on trading activity, volatility, and price efficiency measured by first-order autocorrelation. We extend empirical research by analysing anticipation and reallocation effects. In addition, we consider measures for long-run...

We estimate the optimal tax on property flips by applying a sufficient statistics approach to a 2011 reform in Taiwan which levied a 10%-15% surcharge on investment properties sold within two years. Linking buyer-seller income tax returns to sales records, we find a 75% drop in one-year flips....

In 1971, after the demise of the international monetary system, the so-called Bretton Woods system that ensured semi-fixed exchange rates thanks to capital controls, James Tobin conceived his now famous “Tobin tax”. Since then, some supporters of his original proposal have introduced some...

The adoption of the Tobin tax would be an important political act, a break both with the neo-liberal practices which accompany economic globalisation, and with the fatalism which goes along with them. This idea assumes that the level of co-operation which exists between the nations of the world...

House prices have increased faster than average income in many countries over the last decade, raising concerns on the affordability of housing. We study the impact of transaction taxes on the real estate market and the effectiveness of tax subsidies to make housing more affordable. We show how...

Why it won't work and will damage the economyExecutive summaryThere is strong economic evidence that the proposed Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) would not increase the amount of tax revenue collected by governments. In fact it would reduce total tax revenue by shrinking the economy.Workers and...

The implementation of a financial transaction tax has been the subject of debate for many years. Countries all across the globe have enacted various types of this tax and have seen different results depending upon factors such as the rate and the types of financial instruments affected by it....

We develop a new methodology to estimate the impact of a financial transaction tax (FTT) on financial market outcomes. In our sequential trading model, there are price-elastic noise and informed traders. We estimate the model through maximum likelihood for a sample of sixty New York Stock...

This paper proposes a price-based measure to mitigate the destabilizing impact of the volatility of global capital movements on the domestic economy of a country pursuing sound economic policies. The measure is a withholding tax on all private capital inflows, with a credit and refund provision...

This article analyses the European Commission's Proposal for Financial Transaction Tax with transaction taxes currently implemented in Member States of the European Union. The features identified for this purpose include transactions liable to tax, recognition of legal title, the tax base,...

Based on the sensitivity of the European financial markets highlighted by the last financial crisis, the European Union is pushing for reforms of the existing regulatory framework and has also proposed a financial transaction tax. Until now, the European Union has already adopted a Regulation on...

This paper characterizes the optimal transaction tax in an equilibrium model of competitive financial markets. As long as investors hold heterogeneous beliefs that are not related to their fundamental trading motives and the planner calculates welfare using any single belief, a strictly positive...

The paper integrates the theories of market micro structure, contagion and market illiquidity to discover the behavioural and market outcomes in responding to the Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) implemented by the government of Singapore to curb the exuberating behaviour in the housing markets. Using...

We study the effect of trading costs on information aggregation and acquisition in financial markets. For a given precision of investors' private information, an irrelevance result emerges when investors are ex-ante identical: price informativeness is independent of the level of trading costs....

In 2011, the European Commission presented its proposal for an EU financial transaction tax (FTT). This article analyzes the recent developments as regards the approval of that EU FTT, and the main concerns that the proposed tax gives rise to, considering in particular its characteristics as a...

We study the impact of a financial transaction tax (FTT) in a model that combines asset trade and real investment. An informed trader holds private information about the fundamental value of a firm and the firm's manager relies on the asset price to infer such information and invest accordingly....

We aim to make two contributions to the literature on the effects of transaction costs on financial price volatility. First, by augmenting a double differencing approach with a research design with three ingredients (a common set of companies simultaneously listed on two stock exchanges; binding...

We study the effect of trading costs on information aggregation and acquisition in financial markets. For a given precision of investors' private information, an irrelevance result emerges when investors are ex-ante identical: price informativeness is independent of the level of trading costs....

We develop a model of rational bubbles based on leverage and the assumption of an imprecisely known maximum market size. In a bubble, traders push the asset price above its fundamental value in a dynamic way, driven by rational expectations about future price developments. At a previously...

We develop a new methodology to estimate the impact of a financial transaction tax (FTT) on informational efficiency, liquidity and volatility. In our sequential trading model there are price elastic noise traders and traders with private information of heterogeneous quality. We estimate the...

This study presents in detail the concept of a financial transaction tax (FTT) and the theoretical and empirical evidence in favour and against introducing it, the potential revenues, different implementation designs and its ability to correct various market failures. We analyse the benefits and...