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This paper examines the role of a 'green' value‐added tax in the competitive environment of firms. Using data on firms in Romania and leveraging the introduction of a tax reduction on organic products in 2019, I show that although the overall market for organic goods grows and potential to generate windfall profit exists, the market share of incumbent firms decreases because of intensified competition post‐reform driven by new entrants competing for profits in the market. The market share decreases by about 2 percentage points after the reform. The effect depends on the relative elasticity of demand vis‐à‐vis supply in the market and the ability of a firm to protect its sales from new market entrants. Firms operating geographically further from the main consumer (i.e., more rural firms) and further upstream from the retail sector are more vulnerable to losing market share because urban demand is less elastic than rural demand and retail demand is less elastic than primary demand. Firms that are in markets where it is easier to switch from non‐organic to organic and that are less capital intensive (i.e., have fewer fixed costs) are more vulnerable to losing market share to new market entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent theories claim that young Europeans are increasingly socialist as well as divided from their elders on non‐economic issues. This paper asks whether age‐based polarisation is really growing in Europe, using new estimates of the ideological positions of different age groups in 27 European countries across four issue domains from 1981 to 2018. The young in Europe turn out to be relatively libertarian: more socially liberal than the old in most countries but also more opposed to taxation and government spending. These age divides are not growing either: today's differences over social issues and immigration are similar in size to the 1980s, and if anything are starting to fall. Analysis of birth cohorts points to persistent cohort effects and period effects as the explanation for these patterns; there is little evidence that European cohorts become uniformly more right‐wing or left‐wing with age. Hence age‐based polarisation need not be a permanent or natural feature of European politics but is dependent on the changing social, political and economic climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines, in depth, the hypotheses explaining the tax effort of seven West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries over the period 1996–2018. The studies of Karakaplan and Kutlu were applied to the stochastic tax frontier model. This provides a new method for analyzing tax effort that solves potential endogeneity problems, especially those of income. This study confirms the positive impact of income, trade openness, urbanization, government capital spending and anticorruption on tax revenue mobilization, while the size of the agricultural sector has a negative impact on tax revenue. On the other hand, reforms of tax institutions have no effect on tax effort. The average tax revenue of the countries of the WAEMU is 11.34 and the average tax effort is estimated at 0.7901 over the period 1996–2018. Thus, these countries could achieve a tax revenue to GDP ratio of 13.72% if they fully exploit their potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) is gradually becoming a reality and there are needs now more than ever to investigate how African countries will thrive under this new trade regime. Based on this consideration, this study seeks to investigate the revenue, welfare and trade effect of ACFTA on Nigerian economy with the Partial Equilibrium Analysis approach using the World Trade Integrated Solution‐Single Market Partial Equilibrium Simulation Tool (SMART) model. SMART is a trade simulation model developed by the World Bank and the UNCTAD using trade flow data and tariff data from Trade Analysis and Information Systems, the World Trade Organization Integrated Database and Consolidated Tariff Schedule. The findings from the study show that AFCFTA is a trade creating Free Trade Agreement in Africa and sectors like petrochemical industries, textile and maritime products are the leading trade creating sector in Nigeria. On the other hand, manufacturing activities in the production of sanitary, papers, electronics and automobiles are trade diverting in Nigeria. Overall, the total trade effect in Nigeria is US$ 145 million with an accompanying welfare effect of US$ 13 million. However, the Nigerian government might experience a loss of revenue of US$104 million as a result of tariff removal. Thus, this study concludes that AFCFTA is a trade creating and expanding policy but it comes at a huge loss of revenue on the part of the Nigerian government and this can be ameliorated with the introduction of the more comprehensive consumption tax system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the soft drinks sugar tax introduced in the UK in 2018 on the purchasing behaviours of different geo‐demographic consumer segments. We analyse data for a composite good comprising the most popular sugar‐sweetened drinks (SSDs) using loyalty card data from one of the UK's largest supermarkets. We use pre‐levy data to predict the effect of the tax and corroborate our predictions by analysing actual consumption of the composite good in the first 5 months post‐levy. The results show that the impact of the sugar tax is likely to have the desired effect of reducing the purchase of SSDs. Moreover, though the impact of the tax is likely to vary across different geo‐demographic segments, the evidence suggests that its impact is likely to be greatest on the most vulnerable market segments – families on low incomes – who are among the highest consumers of SSDs in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labor force in Japan is projected to fall from 64 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2100, signaling unprecedented tax/transfer adjustments to achieve fiscal sustainability. In this paper, we develop a quantitative overlapping generations model to measure the impact of guest worker programs in Japan. Against a baseline general equilibrium transition in which the consumption tax adjusts to achieve fiscal sustainability, we compute alternative transitions with guest worker programs. Depending on the size and skill distribution of guest workers, these programs may mitigate Japan's fiscal imbalance problem with a relatively manageable increase in the consumption tax. ( JEL E2, E6, H5, J11, J15) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, using multiagent simulations, the effect asset inequality has on an artificial society is analyzed. It is shown that it is possible for a sustainable society to decrease in asset inequality and at the same time increase economic activity. In sustainable societies, the asset inequality increases as the consumption tax is raised, and in artificial societies where the tax rate is the same, inequality increases in the society in which agents with even a small surplus undertake altruistic actions. In sustainable societies that employ both income and consumption tax, an increase in asset inequalities leads to an increase in economic activity. But in sustainable societies which levy only the income tax, this result does not necessarily hold. These results show that if economic activity is increased in sustainable societies where the consumption tax rate is raised for the sake of fiscal stability, an expansion in inequality is an acceptable consequence. However, the sustainable society with the highest economic activity is realized when only the income tax is levied. In sustainable societies that levy only income tax, it is possible to decrease inequality while simultaneously increasing economic activity. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 91(2): 14–22, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.10023 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a model of public abatement financed either by a pollution tax or by a consumption tax. It shows that consumption tax revenue-financed public abatement raises welfare more than pollution tax revenue-financed public abatement does when the pollution tax rate rises. This result is worthwhile for environmental protection policy makers when they are determining the revenue source of public abatement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]