The Economic Analysis of Taxes

Robert B. Shortly was a chartered accountant in Toronto.

Vladimir Salyzyn, Professor of Economics at the University of Alberta, wrote this book in response to his frustration of trying to teach the application of economic analysis to tax theory without the benefit of a suitable textbook. He felt that existing texts treated tax analysis either sketchily and in an elementary fashion or comprehensively but at a too advanced level. By explaining the use of economic models in studying the effects of taxes on the decisions of households and business firms, as supported by empirical evidence from Canada and elsewhere, the author achieves his goal of creating a textbook to fill the aforementioned gap. His major emphasis is to find out who bears the burden of taxes and to determine the effects of taxes on economic efficiency.

This book is definitely oriented to students of economics who have an interest in taxation. It is of little interest to a tax practitioner other than from an academic perspective.