Taxation and Market Power

We analyze the incidence and welfare e¤ects of unit sales taxes in experimental monopoly and Bertrand markets. We nd, in line with economic theory, that rms with no market power are able to shift a high share of a tax burden on to consumers, independent of whether buyers are automated or human players. In monopoly markets, a monopolist bears a large share of the burden of a tax increase. With human buyers, however, this share is smaller than with automated buyers as the presence of human buyers constrains the pricing behavior of a monopolist.