WTO Membership and the Shift to Consumption Taxes

Konferenzbeitrag

This paper provides an empirical analysis as to what extent countries have been able to recover revenue losses from import duties due to trade liberalization policies through indirect taxes. In contrast to the existing literature, we identify major trade liberalization policies and explore their revenue effects. Specifically, we investigate how revenues from import duties and consumption tax revenues change as a result over the course of GATT/WTO accession. Employing a robust difference-in-difference specification as well as non-parametric methods, our results reveal a substantial, statistically significant inverse relationship between GATT/WTO membership and import duties supporting concerns about revenue losses. At the same time, however, we find a significant increase in revenues from indirect taxes and VAT. Our findings indicate that countries joining GATT/WTO, including low income countries, have successfully substituted revenues from import duties with higher indirect taxes including VAT.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2016: Demographischer Wandel - Session: Macroeconomic Aspects of Development and Trade ; No. F08-V3

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies; includes inheritance and gift taxes ; Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Büttner, Thiess ; Madzharova, Boryana
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel und Hamburg
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/145780
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET