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How best to use the tax system to boost growth, particularly through a downturn? It's an economic question that really matters, while taxes and benefits are being altered significantly in a big gamble that deficit-cutting will somehow lead to growth.

And there's an answer today from the Economic Journal today, in an article by OECD economists, who have been poring over the empirical evidence from different countries and tax regimes.

At least two of their answers would be problematic, if applied in the UK. One is to shift the burden of taxation on to housing - not housing transactions or stamp duty, that is, but on property charges such as council tax.

The argument is that stamp duty discourages mobility, both for workers who might wish to move out of the area in search of work, and for people - empty-nesters, for instance - who are living in houses that are too big for them, and would like to downsize but don't want to pay the tax for doing so.

VAT on food

An economically-efficient tax system would encourage people to move to the home that fits their lives best, thus pricing lower-income, older people out of big houses, making them available for large families. That would require more frequent revaluation for tax - unlike the Scottish council tax system, where homes are rated on a 20-year old assessment.

It's efficient, but the OECD economists concede it's not necessarily popular.

Likewise for consumption taxes, such as VAT, with the suggestion that it would be tax efficient to reduce the consumption tax breaks for particular goods. In Britain, that means household energy, food, newspapers, magazines, books, children's clothes and, rather oddly, the purchase or lease of airships.

It's reckoned that a shift from income tax towards housing and consumption tax could boost growth - a 1% shift delivering a rise of between 0.25% to 1% in long-term growth rates.

Scotland's economists and politicians have recently been loudly at odds about devolving tax powers - the question of whether the very act of devolution boosts growth rates, or is the evidence inconclusive? - there doesn't seem to be any guidance from the Economic Journal or its OECD authors.

Unhappy about terrorism

As proof of just what a dismal science economics can be, the EJ is also offering statistical evidence of just how unhappy people were made by the hijacking attacks of 11 September 2001 in the USA.

By comparing responses to the British Household Panel Survey before and after that date, it's concluded that the impact on levels of happiness was equivalent to one-fifth of the impact of being made unemployed.