Commodity Tax Harmonization in the European Community

Commodity Tax Harmonization in the European Community Synopsis

The book is concerned with the main issues that arise forgeneral commodity taxation in the internal market: thechoice of a new international tax principle and the questionof tax rate harmonization. The book provides a thoroughdiscussion of these issues and evaluates the choices made bythe European Community from a welfare-theoretic perspectiveby comparing them to feasible alternatives. The discussion integrates a large number of recenttheoretical and policy-oriented contributions which have sofar not been collected and summarized in a single volume. Special features of the book are that (a) the analysiscombines elements of international trade theory and publicfinance, two economic disciplines which are rarelyintegrated; (b) a dual general equilibrium framework is usedthroughout the analysis, (c) a second-best setting isconsistently employed, incorporating relevant policyconstraints and integrating conflicting arguments in asingle analytical framework, (d) part of the theoreticalanalysis is supplemented by a computable general equilibriumapproach.;The book shows that well-known international trademodelscan be extended to model alternative principles for taxinginternational trade but also international differences inpreferences for public goods and different views ofgovernment behavior - issues which are directly relevant forthe discussion of tax rateharmonization but are rarelytreated in an analytical way.