IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hbs/wpaper/10-032.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stretching the Inelastic Rubber: Taxation, Welfare and Lobbies in Amazonia, 1870-1910

Author

Listed:
  • Felipe Tâmega Fernandes

    (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit)

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of government intervention via taxation on domestic welfare. A case-study of Brazilian market power on rubber markets during the boom years of 1870-1910 shows that the government generated 1.3% of GDP through an export tax on rubber but that it could have generated 4.7% in total, had the government set the tariff at the optimal level. National, regional and local constraints prevented the government from maximizing regional welfare. In a context of lobbies, government budget maximization may have differed from regional welfare maximization.

Suggested Citation

  • Felipe Tâmega Fernandes, 2009. "Stretching the Inelastic Rubber: Taxation, Welfare and Lobbies in Amazonia, 1870-1910," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-032, Harvard Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-032.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rubber; Commodities; Market Power; Optimal Tariff; Welfare; Trade and Brazil.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L73 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Forest Products
    • N76 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-032. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: HBS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/harbsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.