Redistribution and regional development under tax competition

This paper considers how capital tax competition affects transfer and development policies in the presence of regional income disparity. In each country, development policies determine the number of rich (poor) regions that (do not) engage in production activities, while transfer policies redistribute income between rich and poor regions. The mix of transfer and development policies is inefficient under tax competition: conditional on the equilibrium tax rate, too much revenue is spent on development policies and too little on transfer policies. This analysis of the expenditure mix implies that development policies are used as a means of regional redistribution even if transfer policies are efficient instruments for this purpose. Moreover, it is shown that the overall level of public expenditure may be too high because of the possibility of over-development.     

A theory of interregional tax competition

A general equilibrium model is constructed to study tax competition, where local governments compete for capital by holding down property tax rates and public expenditure levels. An exact definition of tax competition is provided, and both the existence and nonexistence of tax competition are shown to be theoretically possible. It is argued, however, that tax competition must occur under empirically reasonable conditions. Inefficiency in public production is also explicitly modeled. The amount of capital used to produce a given level of public service output is shown to be greater than that which is required to minimize costs evaluated at the prices facing private firms.     

Capital-tax financing and scale economies in public-input production

Contrary to the dominant view of inefficient tax competition, Oates and Schwab (1991) show that capital-tax financing of public inputs leads to efficiency when the supply of these inputs is conditioned on business investment (Oates, W.E., Schwab, R.M., 1991. The allocative and distributive implications of local fiscal competition). This paper demonstrates that the cost structure of public-input production is relevant to their proposition on efficient capital-tax financing. That proposition holds if the per-unit cost of public inputs is exogenously fixed; however, it does not hold if public-input production exhibits scale economies. Also, this paper compares our analysis with the Zodrow-Mieszkowski model. That comparison illustrates the importance of the way public inputs are rationed to private firms.     

Tax Competition and Revelation of Preferences for Public Expenditure

This paper considers a federal country composed of local jurisdictions that differ in their inhabitants' tastes for public goods, and which finance local public expenditure through a source-based tax on capital income. The taste for public goods is the private information of local governments. The central government seeks an optimal policy, in which grants to local governments are conditioned on local tax rates. The uninformed central government seeks both to allocate capital efficiently among jurisdictions, and to induce jurisdictions to provide an efficient mix of private and public consumption. It is shown that there persist at this constrained optimum both some misallocation of capital and some violation of the Samuelson rule for optimal public good provision in every jurisdiction.     

我国财政政策对产业结构优化的时变效应

研究目标：财政政策对产业结构优化的时变性影响。研究方法：构建带有随机波动率的时变参数因子扩展向量自回归模型,进而通过三维脉冲响应展开时变性分析。研究发现：财政政策对产业结构优化确实产生了时变效应,在经济衰退时期,应该增加财政支出、提高投资性支出占比,结合小幅度减税、提高营业税和消费税占比;在经济平稳时期,应该减少税收、提高营业税占比、降低增值税占比,结合小幅度增加财政支出、提高投资性支出占比、降低一般公共服务支出占比;在经济高涨时期,应该增加财政支出、提高科技支出和投资性支出占比,结合小幅度减税、提高所得税占比、降低营业税占比。研究创新：应用时变参数计量模型研究了财政政策对产业结构优化的时变效应。研究价值：有助于重新认识财政政策与产业结构优化的关系。     

中国现代财政制度构建的目标、进程与现状评估

按照财政改革目标,2020年是我国现代财政制度基本建成之年.在本轮改革中,直接税比重提升有限,税收结构有待优化,地方税体系尚未建立;支出结构有待优化,政府职能转变尚未体现.预算制度中,全面规范尚待提升,公开透明尚需加强;绩效管理仍需扎实推进,预算标准尚待完善.财政体制在维持既有财力分配的同时,划分了事权和支出责任,但地...     

Fiscal centralization versus decentralization: Growth and welfare effects of spillovers, Leviathan taxation, and capital mobility

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with spillovers of public goods, Leviathan taxation, and mobile capital to examine the relative merits of centralized and decentralized fiscal systems for economic growth and social welfare. We show that a decentralized system dominates a centralized system in terms of economic growth; however, the difference in social welfare between a decentralized and a centralized system is non-monotonic and displays a hump-shaped relationship with respect to capital mobility. Since higher capital mobility induces stronger tax competition, this finding implies that there is an optimal degree of tax competition; some tax competition is desirable, but fierce tax competition may be harmful. We also show that there is a critical level of spillovers of public goods above which centralization dominates decentralization in terms of social welfare, as in previous studies; however, if spillovers are below this critical level, capital mobility also matters in the welfare comparison between centralized and decentralized systems.     

Coordination of capital taxation among asymmetric countries

This paper studies international fiscal coordination in a world of integrated markets and sovereign national governments. Mobile capital and immobile labor are taxed in order to finance a fixed budget. This generates productive inefficiency. Two fiscal reforms are considered: a minimum capital tax level and a tax range, i.e., a minimum plus a maximum capital tax level. It is shown that the introduction of a lower bound to the capital tax level is never preferred to fiscal competition by all countries while there always exists a combination of both a lower and an upper bound (i.e., a tax range) which is unanimously accepted.     

Long-run growth and welfare effects of public policies with distortionary taxation

In a one-sector growth model with infrastructure investment, we study the impact of fiscal policies on growth. The government collects taxes on labor income and profits. The government uses these revenues to purchase infrastructure investment, provide utility enhancing government services, and to provide transfer payments to the households. We show that the balanced growth rate is an increasing function of the percent of government revenues that goes to infrastructure. We find that the growth maximizing mix of taxes depends on the elasticity of substitution between inputs. In particular, with distortionary taxes, the growth maximizing tax rate on capital is higher the lower the elasticity of substitution between private physical capital and public capital. In addition, the growth maximizing size of the government is higher when the elasticity of substitution between public and private inputs is low. We also investigate welfare effects of other public expenditures as well. Depending on the elasticity of substitution in production, the welfare implications of different public policies can be substantial.     

Sources of Public Revenue that Make Nations Richer

Among sources of public revenue that make nations richer, the most beneficial are charges for harms, such as pollution and congestion, and charges for the private benefits from public services. Increases in the money supply sufficient to keep price changes in line with expectations are also beneficial. Taxes on concentrations of wealth are beneficial if wealth inequality is considered harmful. Properly administered taxes on land do no harm and are beneficial when markets are imperfect. Among taxes that cause harm, the combination of a tax on labour income and a tax on inheritances is probably the least damaging.     

Mobile Labor, Multiple Tax Instruments, and Tax Competition

The tax competition literature shows that local governments keep property tax rates inefficiently low to prevent capital outflows, thereby underproviding local public goods. This paper adds mobile labor and an alternative tax instrument to the model. Jurisdictions have access to a property tax levied on land and capital, plus either a head tax or a labor tax. Scale economies in public good provision create incentives to use the property tax, but these incentives are not accompanied by increased incentives to underprovide public goods. In contrast, underprovision is associated with the use of a distortionary labor tax.     

Public Spending, Land Taxes and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of the Adequacy of Land as a Tax Base

Abstract . Site value taxation is often cited as desirable on efficiency grounds, but is all too often dismissed for alleged lack of revenue potential. This paper empirically tests the revenue adequacy of site value taxation. Revenue adequacy in this study is defined as the ability of the tax base to keep pace with community expenditure needs. The paper concludes that communities with higher than average rates of capital growth and with a relatively constrained land area will find land taxes when subsituted for present property taxes, quite adequate for future as well as present needs.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION, PUBLIC ABATEMENT, AND WELFARE

This paper discusses public abatement financed by pollution tax revenue or tariff revenue and investigates the welfare consequences of a tariff. The main result of this paper is that under certain conditions a tariff reduction results in an improvement in welfare through an increase in public abatement and a decrease in pollution. This result may guide policy for countries that wish to harmonize trade liberalization and the environmental protection demonstrated by both the private and the public sectors.     

The Revenue Adequacy of Site Value Taxation in a Ricardian System of Economic Growth

A bstract . The federal administration has sought to reduce the growth of federal expenditures by shifting some government costs to state and local governments. An increased expenditure burden for the latter governments would require increased tax rates for existing types of taxes that have adverse impacts on economic incentives. Land taxes are considered as a source of revenue because of their efficiency aspects. Unfortunately this idea is all too often dismissed because of alleged revenue inadequacy. Thus an analysis is called for of the revenue adequacy of site value taxation in a Ricardian model of economic growth. The model allows analysis of revenue adequacy over time in an economic growth context that is suited for the long range tax-expenditure planning horizon with which local governments are faced. When revenue needs are primarily dependent upon the population size, and the fisc is initially operating at a deficit, for a land tax to permit attainment of balance, per capita rents must be increasing over time. Also when the economy's public service demand is primarily dependent upon income, deficits will not occur if rental share exceeds the share of income devoted to public output. Not all income goes to fiscal output, so rent eventually exceeds expenditures.     

如何治理企业乱开支

目前,烟草行业发展态势良好,企业销售收入、利润、上缴税金等连年创历史新高,由此也出现了一些乱开支的现象,有的还比较严重,如果管理者不引起重视,长期发展下去会导致企业走下坡路。文章试从制度建设、预算管理、同级审计、纪检监督、经济评审等五个方面来谈谈如何治理企业乱开支行为。     

Interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition: The optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy

This paper explores the implications of the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition for the optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy à la (Osborne and Slivinski, 1996) and (Besley and Coate, 1997). As an extension of Hoyt’s (1991) finding that intensified tax competition is always harmful and aggravates the extent to which public goods are undersupplied in a region, we show that intensified tax competition can be beneficial if political as well as tax competition is considered. In particular, we identify plausible conditions under which (i) there is an optimal intensity of tax competition such that the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition will result in the optimal provision of public goods and (ii) intensified tax competition will be beneficial if and only if the degree of tax competition is less than this optimal intensity.     

A note on tax competition in the presence of agglomeration economies

This paper analyzes tax competition in the presence of agglomeration effects. The obtained results are then compared to the results of the traditional model, without agglomeration effects. As is well known, the presence of a fiscal externality affects the provision of the public good in the standard competitive model of tax competition. In the model with agglomeration effects, in addition to this externality, a new effect shows up. This effect reflects heightened government concern about capital flight, which depresses firm productivity by limiting external economies of scale. As a result, capital tax rates end up being lower than in the case where agglomeration effects are not present, worsening the underprovision of the public good. This conclusion holds in both the competitive and strategic versions of the model.     

Taxes, Federal Grants, Local Public Spending, and Growth

In a dynamic model with both private and local public capital accumulation, this paper examines how federal and local income taxes, local consumption tax, and federal matching grants for local public consumption and local public investment affect the long-run equilibrium (equilibria) of private consumption, private capital accumulation, local public consumption, and local public capital stock.     

Interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition: The optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy

This paper explores the implications of the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition for the optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy à la Osborne and Slivinski, 1996, Besley and Coate, 1997. As an extension of Hoyt’s (1991) finding that intensified tax competition is always harmful and aggravates the extent to which public goods are undersupplied in a region, we show that intensified tax competition can be beneficial if political as well as tax competition is considered. In particular, we identify plausible conditions under which (i) there is an optimal intensity of tax competition such that the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition will result in the optimal provision of public goods and (ii) intensified tax competition will be beneficial if and only if the degree of tax competition is less than this optimal intensity.