Optimal Gasoline Tax in Developing, Oil-Producing Countries: The Case of Mexico

Fausto Hernández-Trillo () and Arturo Antón-Sarabia
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Fausto Hernández-Trillo: Division of Economics, CIDE

No DTE 555, Working Papers from CIDE, División de Economía

Abstract: This paper uses the methodology of Parry and Small (2005) to estimate the optimal gasoline tax for a less-developed, oil-producing country. The relevance of the estimation relies on the differences between less-developed countries LDCs and industrial countries. We argue that lawless roads, general subsidies on gasoline, poor mass transportation systems, older vehicle fleets and cities' unregulated growth make the LDC tax rate differ substantially from rates in the developed world. We find that the optimal gasoline tax is $1.91 per gallon at 2011 prices and show that the estimate differences are in line with the factors hypothesized. In contrast to the existing literature on industrial countries, we illustrate that the relative gasoline tax incidence may be progressive in Mexico and, more generally, in LDCs.

Keywords: gasoline tax; gasoline subsidy; tax incidence; Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H21 Q40 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2013-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-pbe and nep-tre
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http://www.economiamexicana.cide.edu/RePEc/emc/pdf/DTE/DTE555.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal gasoline tax in developing, oil-producing countries: The case of Mexico (2014)
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