IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oruesi/2014_007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare impact of broadening VAT by exempting local food markets: The case of Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Levin, Jörgen

    (Örebro University School of Business)

  • Sayeed, Yeasmin

    (Örebro University School of Business)

Abstract

The spread of value-added tax (VAT) in developing countries has been dramatic since the beginning of 1990’s. Adopted by more than 130 countries, including many of the poorest, VAT has been, and remains, the key of tax reform in many developing countries. While adopting VAT, there are arguments for and against uniform general VAT system. A uniform and general VAT on all commodities is considered to be efficient and less distortionary. On the other hand, from the distributional perspective many goods especially food is exempted from VAT as low income households spend a high share of income on food. The contribution of this study is to analyze the income distribution and welfare impact of VAT reform when the food sectors are divided into local markets and supermarkets. A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is used to evaluate the consequences of VAT reforms for Bangladesh. Our simulation results show that, a VAT reform that exempts the agriculture sector and local market food commodities provides the best welfare and distributional impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Levin, Jörgen & Sayeed, Yeasmin, 2014. "Welfare impact of broadening VAT by exempting local food markets: The case of Bangladesh," Working Papers 2014:7, Örebro University, School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2014_007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.oru.se/globalassets/oru-sv/institutioner/hh/workingpapers/workingpapers2014/wp-7-2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefan Boeters & Christoph Bohringer & Thiess Buttner & Margit Kraus, 2010. "Economic effects of VAT reforms in Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(17), pages 2165-2182.
    2. Arndt, Channing & Dorosh, Paul A. & Fontana, Marzia & Zohir, Sajjad & El-Said, Moataz & Lungren, Christen, 2002. "Opportunities and challenges in agriculture and garments: A general equilibrium analysis of the Bangladesh economy," TMD discussion papers 107, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Ahmad, Ehtisham & Ludlow, Stephen, 1989. "The distributional consequences of a tax reform on a VAT for Pakistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 238, The World Bank.
    4. Keen, Michael & Lockwood, Ben, 2010. "The value added tax: Its causes and consequences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 138-151, July.
    5. Younger, Stephen D, et al, 1999. "Tax Incidence in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Household Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 303-331, May.
    6. Vjekoslav Bratic, 2006. "Tax expenditures: a theoretical review," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(2), pages 113-127.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Yan & Bai, Zhuoran & Findaly, Christopher, 2021. "Value-added Tax Reform and Services Exports: Evidence from China," MPRA Paper 111184, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2021.
    2. Miss Saadia Refaqat, 2003. "Social Incidence of the General Sales Tax in Pakistan," IMF Working Papers 2003/216, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Mahfoudh Hussein Mgammal & Ebrahim Mohammed Al-Matari & Talal Fawzi Alruwaili, 2023. "Value-added-tax rate increases: A comparative study using difference-in-difference with an ARIMA modeling approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    4. Junguo Shi & Xinyi Yuan & Bert M. Sadowski & Kou Kou & Xuhua Hu & Sihan Li & Shanshan Dou, 2022. "VAT Reform, Regional Ownership Structure, and Industrial Upgrading: Evidence From Firms in Northeast China," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, April.
    5. Bofinger, Peter & Franz, Wolfgang & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Weder di Mauro, Beatrice & Wiegard, Wolfgang, 2010. "Chancen für einen stabilen Aufschwung. Jahresgutachten 2010/11 [Chances for a stable upturn. Annual Report 2010/11]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201011.
    6. Combey, Adama, 2020. "Evaluation De L’Ecart De Tva Au Togo [Evaluation Of The Vat Gap In Togo]," MPRA Paper 101478, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Diaz-Bonilla, Carolina & Robinson, Sherman & Lofgren, Hans & Ahmed, Hashim A., 2006. "Growth Strategies to Reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Ethiopia," Conference papers 331522, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    8. Nina Hetzer & Andreas Peichl, 2010. "Tax reform despite empty public coffers?!," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 63(01), pages 28-35, January.
    9. Kowsar Yousefi & Mohammad Vesal, 2023. "The Double Dividend of a Joint Tariff and VAT Reform: Evidence from Iran," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 37(2), pages 331-349.
    10. Kodjo Adandohoin & Vigninou Gammadigbe, 2022. "The revenue efficiency consequences of the announcement of a tax transition reform: The case of WAEMU countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(S1), pages 195-218, July.
    11. Michael Keen, 2007. "VAT attacks!," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(4), pages 365-381, August.
    12. Chen, Shawn Xiaoguang, 2017. "The effect of a fiscal squeeze on tax enforcement: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 62-76.
    13. Christian EBEKE, 2010. "Remittances, Value Added Tax and Tax Revenue in Developing Countries," Working Papers 201030, CERDI.
    14. Bird, Richard, 2010. "Taxation and Development," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 34, pages 1-5, September.
    15. Crivelli, Ernesto, 2013. "Fiscal impact of privatization revisited: The role of tax revenues in transition economies," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 217-232.
    16. Abhay Pant, 2016. "The Revenue Impact of VAT in Madhya Pradesh: Empirical Evidence from India," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(5), pages 182-189, May.
    17. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    18. Haibo Feng & Sheng Liu & Fei Xu, 2019. "China's VAT Reform and Its Effects on Enterprises' Tax Burden and Innovation," Working Papers hal-04066831, HAL.
    19. Li, Aijun & Lin, Boqiang, 2013. "Comparing climate policies to reduce carbon emissions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 667-674.
    20. Eduardo Lora & Johanna Fajardo-González, 2016. "Employment and taxes in Latin America: An empirical study of the effects of payroll, corporate income and value-added taxes on labor outcomes," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 35(Especial ), pages 75-117, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    VAT; VAT reform; incidence analysis; equity and welfare; CGE; Bangladesh;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2014_007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieoruse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.