Financial-transaction tax: small is beautiful. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2010/02, February 2010

Based on their contribution to the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, in this Policy Contribution Resident Fellows Zsolt Darvas and Jakob von Weizsäcker discuss the merits of the much-discussed financial-transaction tax. They argue that the case for taxing financial transactions for the sake of not raising revenue is relatively weak, but a financial-transaction tax could be useful in limiting socially-undesirable transactions. On this basis, they say, a very small, coordinated tax on financial transactions could be implemented successfully