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David Agrawal
David R. Agrawal is an Assistant Professor in the Martin School of Public Policy & Administration and the Department of Economics at the University of Kentucky and an affiliate member in the CESifo Network.
He completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan (2012) after completing his M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley (2007) and his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut (2005).
David’s primary field of research is public finance – with an emphasis on taxation and fiscal federalism.
David’s research agenda focuses on theoretical and empirical ways of incorporating spatial relationships into models of tax competition. His most recent work studies how variation in Internet penetration affects municipal sales tax rates. David is also researching whether local taxes fall or rise as a function of distance to the nearest state border. Additional work analyzes how the strategic reaction to vertical externalities varies within a federation if the federal government has multiple horizontal competitors. He has also studied the optimality of preferential tax zones near state and international borders.
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Production responses and tax evasion with limited State capacity: Evidence from major reform in India
Although VAT eliminates the double taxation of inputs of the retail sales system, which enhances growth, it may increase the number of firms in the informal sector. This makes it very important, from a policy perspective, to understand the impacts of VAT adoption. Currently, there are no studies on the adoption of VAT in developing countries. This project asks: what is the effect of switching from a retail sales tax to a VAT in India - a country with limited tax capacity and a large informal economy?
Production Responses and Tax Evasion with Limited State Capacity - Evidence from Major Reform in India
This project explores: what is the effect of switching from a retail sales tax to a VAT in a country with limited tax capacity and a large informal economy? The project explores this question through two ways: first, exploit individual firm level data. Second, utilise variation in tax rates across various goods and sectors within a state, variation across space and time, and variation in the exemption thresholds below which firms do not need to file a VAT return.
Do value-added taxes benefit firms? Evidence from the adoption of state-specific value-added taxes
Value-added tax (VAT) systems have grown popular in the last 30 years, especially among developing countries looking for ways to raise tax revenue efficiently. Using 2000-2012 data on product, state-specific, and firm-specific tax rates, this article examines the staggered adoption of VAT across states between 2003 and 2008 on firms. It finds that the VAT reform increased firm sales by 45% within four years of the reform.