A comment on the role of prices for excludable public goods

Blomquist and Christensen [(2005). The role of prices for excludable public goods, International Tax and Public Finance, 12 ,61–79] argue that welfare is initially decreasing in the price of an excludable public good and that the case for a positive price for an excludable public good price is weak. We argue that this result follows from their particular characterization of the public good and that an alternative and equally reasonable characterization overturns their result. Hence, the policy case for a positive price on the public good is stronger than Blomquist and Christiansen suggest. JEL Classification H21 · H41     

国际税收竞争的实质及应对

国际税收竞争实质上是市场竞争规律在政府行政领域的体现形式。良性税收竞争有助于降低总体税负、减少经济扭曲、提升公共产品生产效率,但对此类竞争的国际协调难以取得实质成效。恶性税收竞争则会掠夺性地侵占他国税基,对此类竞争的遏制具备理论的必要性和可行性。政府可通过改革现行税制、精简规范收费、优化公共服务以及加强国际合作来应对国际税收竞争。     

Imperfect competition,indirect tax harmonization and public goods

This paper shows that the welfare implications of indirect tax harmonization in a two-country imperfectly competitive framework, are, in general, indeterminate in the presence of public goods: Both countries can be made either worse off or better off. This holds under both the destination and origin principles of taxation and is in sharp contrast to existing results where revenue effects are not present. A consequence of this indeterminacy is that a precise evaluation of tax-harmonizing policies under both tax regimes requires an explicit consideration of the underlying preferences for private and public goods as well as the oligopolistic sectors’ relative cost structures. JEL code F15⋅ H21⋅ H41⋅ H87     

税收竞争、税收负担与经济发展的关系及政策选择

税收负担与经济增长的相关理论证明,适度的低税负有利于经济增长,但因税收负担不公平而形成的税收竞争格局在刺激我国经济快速发展的同时也拉大了内部差距,进一步强化了不公平竞争。随着经济全球化浪潮的加速,国际税收竞争也越来越激烈。因而,针对我国国内经济差距扩大的现实国情,改革相应的财政税收制度,采取灵活的税收竞争政策已成为保持我国经济持续快速发展的迫切要求。     

Tax Competition and International Public Goods

A well known result in the tax competition literature is that tax rates are set too low in the Nash equilibrium to finance an efficient level of public consumption goods. In this model we introduce international spillovers in public goods provision and show that such spillovers reduce, and in the limiting case of perfect spillovers, eliminate tax competition. There is, however, always underprovision of the public good in equilibrium, since larger spillovers increase the problem of free riding. In an extension to the model, we demonstrate that congestion costs may result in overprovision of the public good.     

Tax Competition, Income Differentials and Local Public Services

This paper examines strategic tax setting between fiscal authorities in the presence of mobile workers who locate across these jurisdictions in response to differing tax structures and congestable local public amenities. We find that the nature of the tax setting outcomes depend crucially on the proximity between cities. For distant cities with the same size populations, the pressure on tax rates of a more mobile workforce depends on the whether mobile workers are net beneficiaries or net contributors. If mobile workers are either high or low income earners, cities lower tax rates. If mobile workers are middle income earners, cities raise tax rates. For close or neighbouring cities, workers locate in one of the cities and tax rates and local public amenities are dispersed.     

税收竞争和税收套利对国际税收制度的挑战

当前被动投资的税收竞争、主动投资的税收竞争和税收套利等问题阻碍了单一税收原则和受惠原则的实践运用。本文介绍了税收竞争和税收套利对国际税收制度的挑战,并以OECD成员国的应对为例,阐述了OECD成员国不断与时俱进修订税收法规的历程,试图引起人们关注国际税收制度的完善。     

Tax competition and club goods

International Tax and Public Finance - We augment the traditional model of tax competition with spillovers in public good provision. In our model, identical countries compete for mobile capital. A...     

A Note on the Composition of Public Expenditure under Capital Tax Competition

Keen and Marchand ( Journalof Public Economics, 1997, 66, 33–53) argue that undercapital tax competition, the composition of public expenditureis inefficient in that too much is spent on public inputs benefitinglocal business and too little on public goods benefiting residents.Their result depends on labor immobility. This note shows thatthe Keen-Marchand argument may not hold if both labor and capitalare mobile. An interesting case is identified where capital taxationdoes not distort the mix of public goods and public inputs, eventhough the overall level of public expenditure is inefficientlylow.     

A conceptual framework for understanding global and transnational public goods for health

The paper presents two taxonomies for classifying global and transnational health‐promoting activities according to three parameters of publicness — non‐rivalry of benefits, non‐excludability of non‐payers and the aggregation technologies. Based on these taxonomies and their implications for efficiency and equity, this paper identifies the need for international cooperation in some, but certainly not all, areas concerning the provision of such health‐promoting activities. Additionally, institutional responses are evaluated in light of the various health‐promoting activities. The roles of multilaterals, non‐governmental organisations, foundations and nations are addressed. A host of current global health issues — for example, public‐private partnerships, international orphan drug legislature and patent protection — are addressed.     

IPO waves, product market competition, and the going public decision: Theory and evidence

We develop a new rationale for initial public offering (IPO) waves based on product market considerations. Two firms, with differing productivity levels, compete in an industry with a significant probability of a positive productivity shock. Going public, though costly, not only allows a firm to raise external capital cheaply, but also enables it to grab market share from its private competitors. We solve for the decision of each firm to go public versus remain private, and the optimal timing of going public. In equilibrium, even firms with sufficient internal capital to fund their new investment may go public, driven by the possibility of their product market competitors going public. IPO waves may arise in equilibrium even in industries which do not experience a productivity shock. Our model predicts that firms going public during an IPO wave will have lower productivity and post-IPO profitability but larger cash holdings than those going public off the wave; it makes similar predictions for firms going public later versus earlier in an IPO wave. We empirically test and find support for these predictions.     

Profit tax competition and formula apportionment

We analyze corporate income tax competition with international capital mobility when the common tax base is allocated to governments according to an apportionment formula. Labor can be either internationally mobile or immobile. We compare the Nash equilibria for different apportionment methods. Tax competition produces lower tax rates the more elastically the formula share responds to tax rate changes. More specifically, equilibrium tax rates are typically lowest when apportionment is based on property-shares, followed by payroll- and sales-shares apportionment. Compared to their cooperative levels, equilibrium tax rates are too low for property-share apportionment but tend to be too high for the other formulas. JEL Classification H77 · H25 · F23     

论公共产品效率与税收遵从的互动

公共产品效率最大化是构建公共财政体制的关键。公共产品效率不仅关系到资源配置、经济发展与社会和谐,也关系到纳税人权利受尊重和保护的程度、纳税人对政府的评价与信任等,最终将作用于纳税人的税收遵从决策。公共产品效率与税收遵从具有高度相关性。     

Tax coordination with different preferences for public goods: Conflict or harmony of interest?

The paper analyzes strategic commodity taxation in a model with trade in a single private good that is simultaneously imported by consumers of a high-tax country and exported by its producers. Conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium are given, and an asymmetry is introduced through different preferences for public goods. Two tax coordination measures are discussed—a minimum tax rate and a coordinated increase in the costs of cross-border shopping. It is shown that tax coordination generally benefits the high-tax country while the low-tax country will gain only if the intensity of tax competition is high in the initial equilibrium or if governments are pricesensitive toward the effective marginal costs of public good supply.     

强化地方政府税权的对策探讨

随着市场经济的发展,地方政府在地方经济中的重要作用越来越突出,而这离不开地方政府的税收支持。可是长期以来,我国的地方政府在税权方面欠缺,成为经济发展的制约因素,因此,如何从理论与实践上来认识并解决这一问题,具有重要意义。     

Does recent empirical evidence support the existence of international corporate tax competition?

Recent reductions in institutional barriers to international investment have meant that the existence of international corporate tax differentials is now one of the most significant remaining causes of distortion to the optimum global allocation of resources, and hence to international trade. In the debate as to how to reduce such distortion, two main schools of thought have emerged. The first believes that this result can be achieved primarily through the international co-ordination of corporate taxes. To date, efforts in this direction have not made significant progress. The second contends that market forces, through tax competition, will spontaneously reduce international corporate tax differentials. In this article, an analysis of recent trends in corporate tax rates supports this second contention: statutory and effective corporate tax rates are continuing to decline and converge. However, recent tax revenue data give little support for the existence of tax competition; the expected shift in the tax burden from corporate profits onto less mobile factors such as labor has largely failed to materialize. Several explanations for these contrasting findings are outlined and analyzed.     

Increasing marginal costs and satiation in the private provision of public goods: group size and optimality revisited

It is widely recognized that the degree of inefficiency in the voluntary provision of a public good increases with the group size of an economy. However, we find that only a slight modification in the conventional assumptions gives rise to a profound difference in outcome. In particular, we show that there is a case where the Nash equilibrium provision and the efficient provision will converge as the size of an economy grows. To show this, we assume individuals face increasing marginal cost of voluntary provision and their preference function has a finite satiety point.      

税收收入，GDP及我国宏观税负分析

经济是税收之根本，税收的增长离不开经济的增长，税收反作用于经济，这是经济与税收之间的一般规律，本分析了税收收入与GDP的各个构成要素之间的关系，并通过世界各国宏观税负的分析，结合我国的实际情况，提出了我国宏观税负的合理区间，论证了我国目前小口径宏观税负偏低，而大口径的宏观税负已处于一个较高的水平，进而得出了解决目前财政困难的措施是调整目前的政府收入结构，规范政府收入形式，而不宜走简单增税的路子。     

台湾地区“奢侈税”政策简介

我国台湾地区的特种货物及劳务税(即俗称的奢侈税)是一种带有很强社会经济调节功能的消费税。本文在介绍台湾地区特种货物及劳务税基本情况的基础上,对大陆通过消费税政策调控经济提出了几点建议。     

Equal sacrifice and fair burden-sharing in a public goods economy

Applying a willingness-to-pay approach known from contingent valuation in environmental economics, we develop an ordinally based measure for the size of individual sacrifice that is connected with an agent’s contribution to a public good. We construct a selection mechanism that picks the unique efficient solution among all allocations that have an equal sacrifice as defined in this way. We show that the solution thus obtained corresponds to Moulin’s egalitarian equivalent allocation, conforms to both the ability-to-pay and the benefit principles, and has much in common with the Lindahl equilibrium.