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Who pays the tax?
Who pays the tax?
Aug 14, 2026 12:01 AM

Note: This is the eleventhpost in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics.

Who bears the burden of a tax, the buyer or the seller? Or what about the health insurance mandate in Obamacare—does the employer or the worker pay the tax? In this video, Marginal Revolution University examines these questions and explains why the more elastic side of the market tends to pay a smaller share of a tax.

(If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2 times the speed. You can adjust the speed at which the video plays by clicking on “Settings” (the gear symbol) and changing “Speed” from normal to 1.25, 1.5 or 2.)

Previous in series:How to read a supply curve

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