On Capturing Oil Rents with a National Excise Tax Revisited

Increasing the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

In fiscal year 1970, U.S. federal cigarette tax revenues accounted for 13 percent of all federal excise tax collections and 1 percent of total federal budget receipts. By fiscal year 1980, federal cigarette tax revenues accounted for only 10 percent of all federal excise tax collections and only 0.5 percent of total federal budget receipts.’ In fiscal year 1970, U.S. state and local cigarette t...

Capturing Rents from Natural Resource Abundance: Private Royalties from U.S. Onshore Oil & Gas Production

We study how much private mineral owners capture geologically-driven advantages in well productivity through a higher royalty rate. Using proprietary data from nearly 1.8 million leases, we estimate that the six major shale plays generated $39 billion in private royalties in 2014. There is limited pass-through of resource abundance into royalty rates. A doubling of the ultimate recovery of the ...

Framing the policy debate over spirits excise tax in Poland.

Industry lobbying remains an obstacle to effective health-oriented alcohol policy. In 2013, an increase in excise tax on spirits was announced by the Polish government. This article presents a qualitative analysis of the public debate that ensued on the potential economic, health and social effects of the policy. It focuses on how competing groups, including industry actors, framed their positi...

Excise Taxes, Consumer Demand, Over-Shifting, and Tax Revenue

The Welfare Economics of an Excise-Tax Exemption for Biofuels

A general theory is developed to analyze the efficiency and income distribution effects of a biofuel consumer tax credit and the interaction effects with a price contingent farm subsidy. Using the U.S. ethanol market as a stylized example, ethanol prices rise above the gasoline price by the amount of the tax credit. Corn farmers therefore gain directly while gasoline consumers only gain from an...