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.     

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.     

Efficient Tax Competition with Factor Mobility and Trade: A Note

This note shows that residence- and source-based taxes on capital income are not sufficient to sustain an efficient Nash equilibrium when several goods are internationally traded, apart from two special cases. With several traded commodities, domestic fiscal policies affect foreign welfare not only through changes in the world interest rate but also through changes in the equilibrium relative prices of traded commodities. In order to guarantee the existence of an efficient Nash equilibrium in the general case, additional tax instruments are required. In particular, destination-based taxes on traded commodities are needed to enable the government to control the relative commodity prices faced by domestic consumers. In addition, in order to shield domestic producers from changes in world prices, the government must levy either origin-based commodity taxes or taxes on the immobile factors.     

Optimal International Taxation and Growth Rate Convergence: Tax Competition vs. Coordination

Optimal international taxation and its implications for convergence in long run income growth rates are analyzed in the context of an endogenously growing world economy with perfect capital mobility. Under tax competition (i) the residence principle will maximize national welfare; (ii) the optimal long run tax rate on capital incomes from various sources will be zero in all countries; and (iii) long term per capita income growth rates will be equalized across countries. Under tax coordination, (i) becomes irrelevant while (ii) and (iii) will continue to hold. In other words, optimal tax policies are growth-equalizing with and without international policy coordination. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tax Competition and Foreign Capital

This paper derives welfare equivalence of double taxation rules in a tax competition model with discriminatory home taxes and the ability to finance subsidiary operations with host country capital. For a more general model, we provide sufficient conditions on the number of host sectors and factors that support double-tax-rule equivalence. Examples violating these conditions help identify economic factors under which a home country has strict preferences over double taxation rules. If the home tax rate can influence host factor prices, the home country weakly prefers deductions over credits as in the pure-home-equity financing case.     

Education, Mobility of Labour and Tax Competition

We show that wage-taxfinanced subsidies encourage investment in risky education andoffer welfare gains. Tax competition and labour mobility maylead to substantial erosion of regional taxation. On the otherhand, mobility insures against region-specific shocks encouraginginvestment in education. Thus, welfare effects on the educatedand the owners of the fixed factor may go in either direction.Tax competition is especially fierce if the governments careabout the owners of the fixed factor. Elimination of their interestsfrom the governments' objective functions results in a Pareto-improvementin a federation with tax competition.     

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 and Tax Coordination in the European Union

This paper examines the tax competition literature and attempts to draw out its implications for the debate on corporate tax coordination within the EU. It begins with the early basic tax competition model, which derives conditions under which underprovision of public services occurs and tax harmonization unambiguously improves welfare for all states in the union. The paper then turns to a wide variety of extensions of this model, some of which reinforce its results and others that yield rather different conclusions. The analysis concludes by considering the implications of the tax competition literature for the debate on EU corporate tax coordination, drawing on some recent efforts to synthesize this vast literature by estimating the efficiency costs of tax competition and simulating the efficiency gains from various tax coordination palns.     

Two Games of Interjurisdictional Competition When Local Governments Provide Industrial Public Goods

In this paper we investigate two different games of interjurisdictional competition when local governments provide public goods that benefit industry. Governments play a game either in tax rates on mobile industrial capital or in public expenditures. Although the literature suggests that competition in public expenditures is more competitive than in tax rates, this is not necessarily true in the case of industrial public goods. Moreover, in the presence of industrial public goods interjurisdictional competition may also lead to overprovision of public services.     

当前我国国内横向税收竞争的实证分析

目前我国理论研究的不足阻碍了对现实生活中各类税收竞争问题的有效治理。为此,着眼于我国国内横向税收竞争的实践,对其进行总结和归类,剖析其背后的体制与制度原因,评价其经济效应,并由此提出促进我国国内横向税收有序发展的政策措施是必要的。     

Capital Mobility and Source-Based Taxation of Capital Income in Small Open Economies

This paper examines the taxation of capital income in a small open economy that faces a highly elastic supply of internationally mobile capital and increasing tax competition. The analysis considers a wide variety of additional factors that affect the determination of capital income taxation policy, including the desire to tax economic rents earned by foreign and domestic firms, the desire to take advantage of any treasury transfer effects, the role played by transfer pricing and other financial accounting manipulations by foreign multinationals, the need for a backstop to the personal income tax and various political concerns. The paper evaluates several potential income and consumption-based tax reforms in this context. JEL Code: H21, H25, H87     

Toward A Second-Generation Theory of Fiscal Federalism

Drawing on a wide range of literature and ideas, a new “second-generation theory of fiscal federalism” is emerging that provides new insights into the structure and working of federal systems. After a restatement and review of the first-generation theory, this paper surveys this new body of work and offers some thoughts on the ways in which it is extending our understanding of fiscal federalism and on its implications for the design of fiscal institutions.JEL Code: H77, H11     

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.     

Tax Coordination and Unemployment

This paper analyses the implications of unemployment for fiscal competition and tax coordination among small open economies. Unemployment is modeled as resulting from wage bargaining. The analysis focuses on the effect of labour and capital tax coordination on welfare. We show that, while coordinated capital and labour tax increases unambiguously raise welfare if labour markets are competitive, different results emerge if labour markets are unionised. It turns out that coordinated capital and labour tax increases may reduce welfare. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

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.     

Has Tax Competition Emerged in OECD Countries? Evidence from Panel Data

The theory of international tax competition suggests a shift of tax burden from mobile to immobile tax bases, especially for small open economies. This paper assesses these hypotheses empirically using a sample of 23 OECD countries and the time period 1965–2000. In accordance with tax competition theory, we find that capital mobility exerts a negative impact on capital tax burden, and a positive one on labor tax burden. Further, we observe a positive effect of country size, suggesting that small open economies are levying lower capital and labor taxes than larger ones. Finally, we analyze the time pattern of tax competition and demonstrate that tax competition has intensified since the mid 1980’s.JEL Code: H7, H87, C23     

税收竞争理论发展综述

上世纪80年代中后期以来,税收竞争理论研究已经成为公共经济学领域研究的重要课题之一。近年来,国外对税收竞争的研究取得了众多的研究成果。而我国的研究起步较晚,仍处于介绍与评析国外理论阶段。随着全球化进程的加快,跨国公司活动的日益活跃,国家与国家之间的联系日益密切,如何充分运用税收竞争理论完善我国涉外税收制度、维护我国在对外经济交往中的税收利益、促进我国国内经济的发展将成为以后重要的研究方向。     

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.     

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。     

全球化和发展中国家财政改革的必要

全球化为发展中国家带来压力,促使他们增加公共支出以改善国家的基础设施,改进制度,弥补为了纠正错误政策而支付的最终成本,补偿某些在迅速的全球化中受到最大影响的群体,对其中的一些人进行再培训,用最基本的现代保障网络去取代传统的简单无效的社会保障体系。各国应首先努力提高公共税收的使用效率,然后改革其税制,通过征收个人所得税和增值税,尤其是后者,来提高税收。