search query: @indexterm FREE TRADE / total: 286
reference: 4 / 286
| Author: | Baunsgaard, T. Keen, M. |
| Title: | Tax revenue and (or?) trade liberalization |
| Journal: | Journal of Public Economics
2010 : OCT, VOL. 94:9-10, p. 563-577 |
| Index terms: | revenue value added tax tax reform tariffs free trade emerging markets |
| Language: | eng |
| Abstract: | As the public finances of many developing and emerging market countries still heavily depend on trade tax revenues, the progress of trade liberalization may be hindered unless they are able to create alternative sources of revenue. In the context of, and to inform, increased theoretical controversy about the appropriate balance between trade and other taxes (not least the VAT), this article uses panel data for 117 countries over 32 years cleaned for several problems in standard data sources to address an essential question: Have countries recovered from domestic taxes the revenues lost from previous trade liberalization? For high income countries, this is clearly the fact, whereas for middle income countries, robust signs exist of strong replacement both concurrently with the revenue loss and essentially dollar-for-dollar in the long term. Signs of recovery by low income countries are weaker, however, and their experiences seem to have wide variation. Thus it seems that for low income countries the replacement has been (and become) higher than previously thought, but sufficiently incomplete in many cases to cause concern. |
SCIMA