Suchergebnisse

This paper shows that Tabellini's recent claim to have provided evidence that culture has a causal effect on economic development is unjustified. Tabellini's claim is based on an instrumental variables analysis in which two instruments are used to identify the supposed causal effect. One of these - past literacy - is an invalid instrument. The other - past political institutions - is a weak instrument. The estimates obtained using this second instrument are so imprecise that they cannot be used to support any conclusions about the effect of culture on economic development.

Abstract
This paper uses the concept of gains from trade in government revenue to clarify and extend the analysis of Keen and Wildasin (2004). It shows that their results derive from the use of trade taxes to achieve gains from trade in revenue in circumstances when direct international transfers cannot be used for this purpose. The paper shows that, in such circumstances, Pareto-efficient international equilibria are globally production-inefficient only in special cases, but origin-based commodity taxes, source-based capital taxes, and taxes on trade are nevertheless typically part of a Pareto-efficient international tax system. However, this conclusion depends on ruling out the use of international transfers to trade revenue, the case for which is not compelling.

The paper analyses the gains from trade in distortionary tax revenue between countries, focussing on the case where lump-sum reveue transfers are restricted. In this case, trade taxes can be used to transfer government revenue between countries, and such taxes will typically be used in Pareto-efficient international equilibria. Global production efficiency conditions are often, though not always, satisfied at Pareto-efficient allocations involving trade taxes, but the implications for international taxation differ from those that have been put forward on the basis of the Diamond-mirrlees production efficiency theorem.

Abstract
The paper shows that, if two conditions are satisfied, both radial contraction and concertina trade tax reforms continue to be desirable in a small open economy that differs from the one usually considered by having distributional objectives and using distortionary taxes to raise revenue. The first condition is that some optimisation in the choice of commodity taxes takes place - at a minimum, taxes on nontraded goods must be optimally chosen while taxes on traded goods keep the consumer prices of such goods constant. The second is that pure profits are absent from every household's budget constraint. These conditions mean that some care is required in arguing the case for simple trade tax reforms in small open economies.

The paper shows that a comparison of the appropriately-weighted sum of households' marginal willingness to pay for a public good with the net effect of the increased supply of the public good on shadow, as distinct from actual, government revenue is a generally valid rule for public good provision. This rule does not depend on any assumption that existing policy is optimal. The practical problems in measuring the true social cost of additional public good provision involve the need to estimate shadow prices of non-traded goods and goods which are not traded at given world prices The marginal cost of public funds is not required in order to measure the social cost of public good provision.

The medieval Champagne fairs are widely used to draw lessons about the institutional basis for long-distance impersonal exchange. This paper re-examines the causes of the outstanding success of the Champagne fairs in mediating international trade, the timing and causes of the fairs' decline, and the institutions for securing property rights and enforcing contracts at the fairs. It finds that contract enforcement at the fairs did not take the form of private-order or corporative mechanisms, but was provided by public institutions. More generally, the success and decline of the Champagne fairs depended crucially on the policies adopted by the public authorities.