This is an experimental study of a three-player power-to-take game where a take authority is matched with two responders. The game consists of two stages. In the first stage, the take authority decides how much of the endowment of each responder that is left after the second stage will be transferred to the take authority (the so-called take rate). In the second stage, each responder can react ...

The extant literature on fat taxes and thin subsidies tends to focus on the overall e ectiveness of such scal instruments in altering diets and improving health. However, little is known about the welfare impacts of scal food policies on society. This paper lls a gap in the literature by assessing the distributional impacts and welfare e ects resulting from a tax-subsidy combination on di erent...

The monoclinic compound CuC40 4-2 H ;0 (space group P 2t/c) was prepared from aqueous acetate buffered solution. The structure was solved from a twinned crystal. Chains consisting of squarate dianions and Cu2 + , which is coordinated octahedrally in a strongly distorted manner, are the main feature. Only two squarate oxygen atoms contribute considerably to the coordination of Cu2 .̂ Neighbouring...

Approximately 16.7% of output in high-income OECD countries is produced informally. Across these countries, the size of the informal economy is positively related to tax rates and negatively related to governance quality. While existing models of the informal economy mostly focus on developing countries, this paper studies the mechanisms behind the informal economy in high-income countries. I b...

This paper proposes a dynamic extension to Saez (2010) bunching formula that allows us to distinguish bunching based on real responses and income shifting. We provide direct evidence of income shifting and pronounced bunching in taxable income for the case of Danish self-employed. If income shifting was neglected in this case, we would conclude that taxable incomes were highly sensitive to chan...

This paper presents the results of a policy oriented macroeconomic experiment involving an ‘international’ economy with a relatively small ‘home’ country and a large ‘foreign’ country. It compares the economic performance of two alternative tax systems as a means to finance unemployment benefits: a wage tax system versus a sales-tax-cum-labor-subsidy system. The two systems are applied to the s...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the US. In the case of an unemployment shock 48 per cent of the shock are absorbed in the EU, compared to...

Using a novel dataset on local government debt and house prices in California, this paper finds that the rise in house prices caused an expansion in local governments debt in the early 2000s. The elasticity between local government debt and house prices, estimated using cross-sectional variation in the share of developable land from Saiz (2010), suggest that a percentage point rise in house pri...

We introduce a “smart” cap and trade system that eliminates the welfare costs of asymmetric information (“uncertainty”). This cap increases or decreases in response to technology or macroeconomic shocks. It relies on the market price of certificates to aggregate the relevant information. In the static setting, Weitzman (1974) shows that a tax is more efficient than a (standard) cap if marginal ...

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. Like any tax, the VAT is vulnerable to evasion and fraud. But...