This paper estimates that the US could attain large welfare gains by implementing an optimal Ramsey tax policy that taxes consumption and income. It is also found that the welfare implications associated with taxing consumption are quantitatively more important than those associated with dynamically taxing income. Indeed, replacing income taxes with a constant consumption tax leads to a welfare...

There has been significant growth in political, public, media, and academic interest in taxes and subsidies to encourage healthy food consumption over the past 3 years. The present systematic review, including an assessment of study quality, was conducted on new evidence published between January 2009 and March 2012 for the effect of food taxes and subsidies on consumption. Forty-three reports ...

Once we get over the current global economic crisis, most developed nations will need to raise significant revenues to pay for their recent economic stimulus packages as well as for their ongoing social welfare systems. Achim Kemmerling’s book will provide policymakers with some important insights about which taxes to increase and what the consequences are for labor markets. Kemmerling observes...

 Over-consumption of foods and beverages high in fat, sugar and salt content, associated with heightened risk for obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), is one of the biggest public health problems facing the UK.  It is not only a worry for people who suffer from limiting conditions such as diabetes, types of cancers, cardiovascular and coronary heart disease, but it is al...

BACKGROUND The public health perspective on alcohol comprises two main tenets: (i) population drinking impacts on alcohol-related harm and (ii) population drinking is affected by the physical and economic availability of alcohol, where alcohol taxes are the most efficient measure for regulating consumption. This perspective has received considerable empirical support from analyses of contempora...

This paper examines the role for tax policies in productivity-shock driven economies with \catching-up-with-the-Joneses" utility functions. The optimal tax policy is shown to a ect the economy countercyclically via procyclical taxes, i.e., \cooling down" the economy with higher taxes when it is \overheating" in booms and \stimulating" the economy with lower taxes in recessions to keep consumpti...

Public support for policies to control alcohol sales and consumption was surveyed in seven Minnesota communities. A total of 438 women and 383 men were asked to indicate their level of support of or opposition to nine different proposals designed to regulate alcohol. There was general support for all policies, which was strongly related to characteristics of respondents and type of policy propo...

The next round of reform and cuts to federal taxes should focus on bringing down overall personal tax rates, so that the tax mix depends relatively more on consumption taxes rather than income taxes, says a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. And Ottawa should pay more attention to payroll tax design, the study suggests, since payroll taxes that are clearly seen to fund desired ben...

The paper studies the dynamic macroeconomic and welfare effects of tax policy in the context of an overlapping-generations model of the Yaari-Blanchard type for a closed economy. The model is extended to allow for endogenous labor supply and three tax instruments—namely, a capital tax, labor income tax, and consumption tax. It is shown that labor taxes increase welfare of old generations wherea...