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Optimal grouping of commodities for indirect taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Pascal Belan

    (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes)

  • Stéphane Gauthier

    (ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, CREST-INSEE - Centre de Recherche en Economie et en Statistique - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE))

  • Guy Laroque

    (CREST-INSEE - Centre de Recherche en Economie et en Statistique - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE), Department of Economics - UCL - University College of London [London])

Abstract

Indirect taxes contribute to a sizeable part of government revenues around the world. Typically there are few different tax rates, and the goods are partitioned into classes associated with each rate. The present paper studies how to group the goods in these few classes. We take as given the number of tax rates and study the optimal aggregation (or classification) of commodities of the fiscal authority in a second best setup. The results are illustrated on data from the United Kingdom.

Suggested Citation

  • Pascal Belan & Stéphane Gauthier & Guy Laroque, 2008. "Optimal grouping of commodities for indirect taxation," Post-Print hal-00731151, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00731151
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2008.01.010
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00731151
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Stéphane Gauthier, 2013. "Optimal tax base with administrative fixed costs," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(6), pages 961-973, December.
    2. Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2011. "Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 11/151, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    3. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2023. "The Case for Uniform Commodity Taxation: A Tax Reform Approach," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 244(1), pages 79-109, March.
    4. Braouezec, Yann, 2016. "On the welfare effects of regulating the number of discriminatory prices," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 588-607.
    5. Lim Jean & Rodríguez-Zamora Carolina, 2010. "The Optimal Tax Rule in the Presence of Time Use," Working Papers 2010-05, Banco de México.
    6. Belan, Pascal & Gauthier, Stephane, 2006. "Optimal indirect taxation with a restricted number of tax rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1201-1213, August.
    7. Christian Gillitzer & Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Joel Slemrod, 2017. "A Characteristics Approach to Optimal Taxation: Line Drawing and Tax‐Driven Product Innovation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(2), pages 240-267, April.
    8. Alain Babatounde & Bart Capeau & Romain Houssa, 2023. "Welfare effects of indirect tax policies in West Africa," DeFiPP Working Papers 2301, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    9. Robin Boadway, 2017. "Second-Best Theory: Ageing well at Sixty," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 249-270, May.
    10. Boadway, Robin & Cuff, Katherine, 2022. "A generalization of the Deaton-Hellwig results on uniform commodity taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    11. Yann Braouezec, 2013. "The Welfare Effects of Regulating the Number of Market Segments," Working Papers 2013-ECO-11, IESEG School of Management.

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