An analysis of indirect tax reform in Ireland in the 1980s

This paper applies the Ahmad-Stern model of indirect tax reform to the Irish economy for two different years, 1980 and 1987. It introduces a modification to the traditional marginal social cost measure used in these studies, identify welfare-improving, revenue-neutral tax changes at the margin and examines their sensitivity to such issues as inequality aversion and consumer preferences. It also estimates the implied degree of inequality aversion for Ireland for these two years. Results suggest that the government's social welfare function, as implied by the indirect tax system, has become less inequality averse.A hard copy is available in UCD Library at GEN 330.08 IR/UN