Japan’s Consumption Tax : Settled in to Stay

Implementing a Progressive Consumption Tax

Relative Consumption and Tax Evasion

Relative consumption effects or status concerns that feature jealousy (in the sense of Dupor and Liu, AER 2003) boost consumption expenditure. If consumption is financed by labour income, such status considerations increase labour supply and, hence, the tax base. A higher taxable income, in turn, can make tax evasion more attractive. We show for various specifications of preferences that the ta...

The Dynamic Welfare Comparison of seignorage Tax and Consumption Tax

This paper compares equilibrium paths and the welfare costs between a seignorage tax along both transitional dynamics and steady state. Using a framework that combines monetary policy with public finance, one of these two taxes is used to finance an exogenous stream of public spending in a fashion to balance the government budget. If only equilibrium paths in a steady state are compared, the we...

Taxing Sweets: Sweetener Input Tax or Final Consumption Tax?

In order to reduce obesity and associated costs, policymakers are considering various policies, including taxes, to change consumers’ high-calorie consumption habits. We investigate two tax policies aimed at reducing added sweetener consumption. Both a consumption tax on sweet goods and a sweetener input tax can reach the same policy target of reducing added sweetener consumption. Both tax inst...

The Household Expenditure Response to a Consumption Tax Rate Increase

This study measures the effect of an increase in Japan’s Value Added Tax rate on the timing of household expenditures and consumption, which do not necessarily coincide. The analysis finds that durable and storable expenditures surged in the month prior to the tax rate increase, fell sharply upon implementation, but quickly returned to their previous long-run levels. Non-storable non-durable ex...