Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution
研究了发展中国家消费税的累进性，发现考虑非正规消费后，消费税实际上是累进的，因为高收入家庭在正规商店消费更多，从而承担了更大税负。这对低收入国家食品免税政策的公平性提出了质疑。
Abstract Can taxes on consumption redistribute in developing countries? Contrary to consensus, we show that taxing consumption is progressive once we account for informal consumption. Using household expenditure surveys in 32 countries, we proxy for informal consumption using the type of store where purchases occur. We establish that the budget share spent in informal stores steeply declines with income, so that richer households pay a substantially larger share of their income in taxes. Our findings imply that the widespread policy of exempting food from taxation is hard to justify on equity grounds in low-income countries.