Sickness absence and health care in an economic federation

This paper addresses vertical fiscal externalities in a model where the state governments provide health care and the federal government provides a sickness benefit. Both levels of government tax labor income and policy decisions affect labor income as well as participation in the labor market. The results show that the vertical externality affecting the state governments’ policy decisions can be either positive or negative depending on, among other things, the wage elasticity of labor supply and the marginal product of expenditure on health care. Moreover, it is proved that the vertical fiscal externality will not vanish by assigning all powers of taxation to the states.      

Tax Setting in a Federal System: The Case of Personal Income Taxation in Canada

In a decentralised tax system, the effects of tax policies enacted by one government are not confined to its own jurisdiction. First, if both the regional and the federal levels of government co-occupy the same fields of taxation, tax rate increases by one layer of government will reduce taxes collected by the other. Second, if the tax base is mobile, tax rate increases by one regional government will raise the amount of taxes collected by other regional governments. These sources of fiscal interdependence are called in the literature vertical and horizontal tax externalities, respectively. Third, as Smart (1998) shows, if equalisation transfers are present, an increase in the standard equalisation tax rate provides incentives to raise taxes to the receiving provinces. A way to check the empirical relevance of these hypotheses is to test for the existence of interactions between the regional tax rate, on the one hand, and the federal tax rate, the tax rate set by competing regions, and the standard equalisation tax rate, on the other hand. Following this approach, this paper estimates provincial tax setting functions with data on Canadian personal income taxation for the period 1982–1996. We find a significant positive response of provincial tax rates to changes in the federal income tax rate, the tax rates of competing provinces, and the standard equalisation rate (only for receiving provinces). We also find that the reaction to horizontal competition is stronger in the provinces that do not receive equalisation transfers.     

Federal tax competition and the efficiency consequences for local taxation of revenue equalization

Recent work has shown that a system of equalization grants can neutralize the efficiency loss caused by tax competition among lower-level governments. These models, however, ignore the vertical tax externalities that occur when the federal and lower-level governments levy taxes on the same base. This paper incorporates equalization grants into a standard capital tax competition model in which there are horizontal tax externalities between jurisdictions and vertical tax externalities between the levels of government. It is shown that, even in the presence of vertical tax externalities, an efficient level of lower-level government taxation can be achieved with a modifying version of a standard equalization grant formula.     

Interjurisdictional Tax Competition in a Federal System of Overlapping Revenue Maximizing Governments

Academic literature in public finance has focused on interjurisdictional tax competition—namely among similar types of local governments—but has leaved vertical externalities arising from interactions between two overlapping governments sharing the same tax base aside. The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple model within which interjurisdictional tax competition and vertical interactions between two overlapping governments that share the same tax base can be analyzed simultaneously. We find that interjurisdictional tax competition reduces the global tax rate set by both overlapping governments (federal and local) but is unable to solve completely the distortion arising from vertical externalities. The model is also extended to allow for government subsidies to industrial capital. We give sufficient conditions for capital subsidies to be more efficient to attract capital when they are granted at a federal level rather than at a local level.     

Efficiency and the optimal direction of federal-state transfers

It seems to be widely believed that the case for centralizing revenue-raising is stronger than that for centralizing expenditure decisions, so that federal governments should typically make transfers to lower-level (state) governments. This paper argues, however, that pure efficiency considerations may plausibly point in exactly the opposite direction. This arises because of a vertical fiscal externality: the typical state may neglect the impact that its tax decisions have on the federal tax base. The optimal federal response is to internalize this distortion of state decisions by means of offsetting subsidy on the common tax base, the financing of which may plausibly require transfers from the states.     

分税与地方财政支出结构

本文研究了税收分成对地方财政支出结构的影响。理论分析发现,在地方政府的财政支出结构竞争中,税收分成比例的提高将直接导致地方政府增加生产性公共支出,发挥生产性支出的产出外部性,提高产出水平和自身税收收入水平,实现福利最大化。一系列经验分析显著地验证了上述结论,即当地级市政府的税收分成率提高10%,该地区生产性支出占比将提高1.39%。本文的分析和结论有助于解释中国地方财政支出结构变动的原因,从而为政府间税收分配改革提供有效的政策建议。     

Shared Tax Sources and Public Expenditures

This paper deals with a specific vertical assignment of public functions in a federation: Two levels of government share both the same tax source and expenditure on a productivity increasing public service. We consider surplus maximizing Leviathan governments which provide public services in order to increase their potential tax base. The Nash equilibrium is characterized by overtaxation and relative to surplus maximization—depending on whether or not the public goods are sufficiently complementary with the entire tax base—either underprovision or overprovision of the public service. The implications of these results, in terms of welfare and potential use for earmarking taxes are also considered.     

中国公共预算约束软化的体制成因：理论分析与实证检验

科学和民主的预算管理制度建立前,税制和分税制对政府预算约束有重要作用。中国税制和分税制缺乏内生约束机制,地方政府有空间和激励突破预算框架参与过度财政竞争,使公共预算约束软化。根据公共预算软约束的估计和面板 probit模型,1994年的税制和分税制改革整体硬化了全国预算收入约束,但导致东部的预算收入约束软化,且未改善预算支出约束。现行税制和分税制下,不规范的税收优惠政策、投资扩张冲动和专项转移支出依赖是导致公共预算约束软化的重要机制。     

Tax Competition and Fiscal Equalization

This paper analyzes the relation between tax competition and fiscal equalization. In particular, it asks the question whether fiscal equalization schemes can mitigate inefficient tax competition. Two transfer schemes are considered: tax revenue and tax base equalization schemes. The paper shows that equalizing transfers may internalize fiscal externalities. In particular, in a small open economy tax base equalization yields efficient tax rates. Thus, transfer mechanisms with an explicit redistributive character do not always impair efficiency.     

Fiscal Externalities and Efficient Transfers in a Federation

This paper investigates properties of the second best allocation in a fiscal federal system in which both federal tax and intergovernmental grants are involved and the taxation is distortionary. Also, optimal federal grants and tax policies in a decentralized fiscal system are examined. Our major findings are: (i) the second best does not require the equalization of marginal cost of public funds across regions in a conventional form; (ii) matching grants based on either the local tax rates or tax revenues should be introduced to internalize the tax externality; and (iii) once lump-sum and matching grants are optimized, federal tax policy becomes redundant so the optimal fiscal gap is indeterminate.