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Record W3122042936 · doi:10.1257/aer.91.4.1084

VAT Base Broadening, Self Supply, and the Informal Sector

2001· preprint· en· W3122042936 on OpenAlexaffabout
John Piggott, John Whalley

Bibliographic record

VenueAmerican Economic Review · 2001
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldEconomics, Econometrics and Finance
TopicFiscal Policy and Economic Growth
Canadian institutionsWestern University
Fundersnot available
KeywordsWelfarePresumptionLabour supplyLabour economicsEconomicsGeneral equilibrium theoryYield (engineering)BusinessMonetary economicsMicroeconomicsPublic economicsMarket economy

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

We develop a general equilibrium tax model to evaluate the impacts of equal yield base broadening in indirect taxes from high rate narrow based (typically manufactures) taxes to broad based taxes (including services) such as a VAT. We capture differences in choice of mode of supply between market goods, such as manufactures, which cannot be supplied other than through the market, and self-suppliable services and informal sector supplied products. Using this formulation, we are able to provide numerical examples of welfare worsening VAT base broadening, which expands the tax base from market based manufactures, in which there are few (or no) non taxed supply possibilities, to all goods and services where such possibilities exist. We show that the usual presumption that there are welfare benefits from equal yield VAT base broadening breaks down once tax induced increases in self supply of previously non taxed goods and services and in informal sector activity (in small scale construction and other areas) are taken into account. Moreover, since untaxed informal sector supply is typically from lower income to higher income households, they gain as comparable informal sector activity is taxed under the base broadening change. We provide a calibrated version of the model, which captures Canadian base broadening accompanying the introduction of the Canadian VAT (GST) in 1990. Results show the change to have been welfare worsening in aggregate but progressive; opposite to conventional belief. Aggregate welfare losses increase sharply if pre-existing income taxes enter the analysis, since VAT induced supply side losses compound with the income tax, while consumption side tax rate variance reducing gains do not

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.234
Threshold uncertainty score0.465

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0020.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0080.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.025
GPT teacher head0.235
Teacher spread0.210 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2001
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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