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Value-added taxation and consumption

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  • James Alm

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  • Asmaa El-Ganainy

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Abstract

One of the main rationales for taxing consumption rather than income is that it is believed that consumption taxes discourage consumption, encourage savings, and thus generate higher economic growth. However, empirical evidence on the actual effectiveness of consumption taxes in stimulating savings is very limited. In this paper, we estimate the impact of a broad-based consumption tax, the value-added tax (VAT), on the aggregate consumption of fifteen European Union countries over the period 1961–2005. Our empirical results indicate, across a variety of estimation methods and specifications, that a one percentage point increase in the VAT rate leads to roughly a one percent reduction in the level of aggregate consumption in the short run and to a somewhat larger reduction in the long run. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

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  • James Alm & Asmaa El-Ganainy, 2013. "Value-added taxation and consumption," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(1), pages 105-128, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:20:y:2013:i:1:p:105-128
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-012-9217-0
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    Cited by:

    1. repec:dug:journl:y:2017:i:2:p:7-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Laurence Seidman, 2013. "Overcoming the Fiscal Trilemma with Two Progressive Consumption Tax Supplements," Public Finance Review, , vol. 41(6), pages 824-851, November.
    3. Kaya, Ayşe & Şen, Hüseyin, 2015. "Taxes and Private Consumption Expenditure: A Component Based Analysis for Turkey," MPRA Paper 61857, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Jan 2015.
    4. Luca Barbone & Misha V. Belkindas & Leon Bettendorf & Richard Bird & Mikhail Bonch-Osmolovskiy & Michael Smart, 2013. "Study to quantify and analyse the VAT Gap in the EU-27 Member States," CASE Network Reports 0116, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    5. repec:pjm:journl:v:xxi:y:2016:i:2:p:79-99 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:ris:utmsje:0200 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Value-added taxation; Consumption taxation; Savings; Economic growth; Generalized methods of moments estimation; H20; H25; H31;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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