地方政府税收竞争对产能过剩的影响

使用2001—2011年我国省际面板数据,测算了我国30个省(自治区、直辖市)的产能过剩程度,进一步实证检验了地方政府的税收竞争对产能过剩的影响。结果表明:产能过剩主要出现在重工业领域;地方政府的税收竞争加剧了重工业的产能过剩程度,其中增值税竞争的影响大于总税收竞争和企业所得税竞争的影响,地方政府税收竞争的滞后影响大于当期影响;在中、西部地区,地方政府的税收竞争对重工业产能过剩的影响更为显著。指出:减弱地方政府的税收竞争有利于缓解我国产能过剩问题。     

SPECIAL‐INTEREST SPILLOVERS AND TOBACCO TAXATION

This study explores the effects tobacco special interest has had on cigarette tax rates. Using a spatial econometric model to control for tax competition and the endogeneity present in state tax rates, this study finds that tobacco special interest has played a significant role in influencing state cigarette tax rates. Pounds of tobacco grown in a state and tobacco industry campaign contributions are associated with lower cigarette tax rates. The empirical results show that the magnitude of the special‐interest effect can be two to five times as large when the spatial spillover effects are included. (JEL C23, H71, H73)     

促进信息技术产业发展的税收思考

IT产业是一个比较幼稚的产业,但它对于国民经济而言又具有非常重大的现实意义。从某个角度上说,它在竞争中处于不利的地位,因而有必要对其在税收政策方面给予一定的扶持。扶持的措施是完善税收政策,改革现行的企业所得税,增值税和个人所得税,使我国的税收制度更加有利于IT产业的发展。     

Specific taxation,asymmetric costs,and endogenous quality

This paper shows how a specific tax—in contrast to an ad valorem tax—alters industry structure and firm-level performance in a monopolistic competition framework, where firms chose product quality endogenously and differ exogenously in productivity (i.e., marginal production efficiency). Industry equilibrium mechanisms and selection based on productivity play a significant role: A specific tax shifts market shares and profits toward firms with costs and prices above the industry average at the expense of low-cost firms. This reallocation of market shares releases a novel scale effect such that low-cost firms may quality downgrade, while high-cost firms always quality upgrade. There exists a parameter subspace, where this combines to a decrease on average quality for the industry. In comparison: An ad valorem tax only reduces the number of firms/varieties in the industry due to demand absorption, but affects neither firm-level performance nor industry structure.     

不完全税权、政府竞争与税收增长

本文在一个同时包含了政府间横向和纵向竞争的框架内分析了中国税收增长路径的内生决定机制。在名义税率不变,但存在较大征管空间的情况下,横向竞争倾向于压低实际均衡税率,纵向竞争则恰恰相反。分税制改革以来的税权向上集中趋势,以及中央对地方财政收入的规范化进程等因素,使得纵向竞争效应趋强,横向竞争效应相对趋弱,最终体现为十几年的税收持续超经济增长。当前,减税以及相关的分权、分税体制改革可作为增进社会福利的备选方案。     

Strategic Tax Competition in Switzerland: Evidence from a Panel of the Swiss Cantons

Abstract. Tax competition is discussed as a source of inefficiency in international taxation and in fiscal federalism. Two preconditions for the existence of such effects of tax competition are that mobile factors locate or reside in jurisdictions with – ceteris paribus – lower tax rates, and that taxes are actually set strategically in order to attract mobile production factors. It is well known from studies about Swiss cantonal and local income tax competition that Swiss taxpayers reside where income taxes are low. In this paper, empirical results on strategic tax setting by cantonal governments are presented for a panel of the Swiss cantons from 1984 to 1999. Completing the evidence on Swiss tax competition, income tax rates in cantons are the lower, the lower the tax rates of their neighbors.     

Japan's oligopolies: Potential economy wide gains from structural reforms

Japan's slowdown preceded those in the other advanced economies and is therefore of global significance. While its initial causes were financial, a resurgence will depend on productivity growth, key determinants of which are investment and industrial structure. This paper focuses on the costs of a structure dominated by oligopolies and the potential gains from combined competition and tax reform. We first identify industry concentration levels and economic rents using firm specific data and then incorporate these in a calibrated economy-wide model. Simulations suggest that competition policy and more openness to investment in services could deliver 5–17% of additional GDP. These stimulate investment via returning external wealth. Gains are spread most evenly if competition policy is combined with company tax reform. This retains fiscal balance and improves the domestic purchasing power of all Japanese incomes.     

Competing for capital when labor is heterogeneous

This paper investigates the impacts of capital mobility and tax competition in a setting with imperfect matching between firms and workers. The small country attracts less firms than the large one but accommodates a share of the industry that exceeds its capital share—a reverse home market effect. This allows the small country to be more aggressive and to set a higher tax rate than the large one, thus implying that tax competition reduces international inequalities. However, the large country always attains a higher utility than does the small country. Our model thus encapsulates both the “importance of being small” and the “importance of being large”. Last, tax harmonization benefits to the small country but is detrimental to the large one.     

What Drives Corporate Tax Rates Down? A Reassessment of Globalization,Tax Competition,and Dynamic Adjustment to Shocks*

We reassess the driving forces behind the recent decline of corporate tax rates in Europe. Using data for up to 32 countries from 1983 to 2006, we analyze the roles of economic and financial openness as well as tax competition, while allowing for dynamic adjustment to shocks and period‐specific and country‐specific effects. While there is no evidence that countries that have become more open have reduced their tax rates more, our findings suggest that countries strongly compete over statutory tax rates. A simulation of tax rates in a scenario with no cross‐sectional dependence in tax setting suggests that, in the absence of tax competition, the mean statutory tax rate of Western European countries in 2006 would have been about 12.5 percentage points above its actual level. We conclude that the recent downward trend in corporate taxes is mainly a result of tax competition.     

中国式分权下地方政府FDI税收竞争的策略性及其经济增长效应

中国式分权机制下,政治和经济双重激励使地方政府竞相降低税率吸引FDI流入,本文考察了这种税收竞争的策略性及其对FDI经济增长效应的影响。模型表明地区间策略性税收竞争将通过降低外资质量影响FDI经济增长效应。使用1999-2006年省级面板数据进行实证分析,回归结果表明,经济发展水平相近的地区间外资企业实际所得税率具有显著的空间正相关性;税收优惠对FDI经济增长效应具有明显的阻碍作用;并且税收优惠幅度越大,阻碍作用越强。因此,我国需要加大对地方政府招商引资行为的监督和约束,以使地方政府放弃对FDI的盲目追捧,转而注重FDI质量,提高FDI对国民福利的促进作用。     

Optimal Emissions Taxation under Imperfect Competition in a Durable Good Industry

This paper investigates optimal emissions taxation under imperfect competition in a durable good industry where products are sold (instead of rented). As a benchmark, attention is paid to the special case of monopoly with exogenously given product durability. In line with previous literature, the optimal emission tax in this benchmark model falls short of marginal damage (underinternalization). Extending the benchmark model either to the case of an oligopolistic market structure and/or to the case of endogenous product durability then provides two cases in which the optimal emission tax overinternalizes marginal damage.     

Financial structure and the effectiveness of pollution control in an oligopolistic industry

This paper explores the link between pollution taxes and the financial and output decisions of firms in an oligopolistic industry facing demand uncertainty. It is shown that environmental regulations such as pollution taxes may induce firms to alter their financial structure, which in turn influences both output levels and the effectiveness of the tax in controlling pollution emissions. It is demonstrated that there exist circumstances in which highly leveraged firms may respond to pollution taxes by expanding output and emission levels. This possibility arises in a leveraged oligopoly since the tax acts as a credible commitment device which leads to more aggressive competition in output markets.     

税收与二、三产业互动关系的实证研究——基于省际面板数据的PVAR估计

税收与经济的互动关系,一直是学界关注的热点话题,但从实证角度来分析二者之间的作用方向、反应强度、反应时滞的尚不多见。文章首先从理论上构建了税收与二、三产业之间的相互传导机制;然后以1994-2011年全国30个省市的年面板数据为基础,运用面板数据估计、格兰杰因果检验和面板向量自回归模型等方法,实证分析二、三产业与税收之间的互动关系。结果表明:二、三产业与税收互动关系明显;税收对二、三产业的调控作用显著,且对第三产业的调控作用更大;二、三产业对税收的影响具有滞后性,而税收对二、三产业的影响是即时的。最后,根据理论和实证分析结果,提出了若干结论和相应的建议。     

中国税制的国际竞争力研究

国际税收竞争是经济全球化发展的产物,是各国以税收为载体、以促进本国经济增长为目的的竞争,其实质是经济竞争。在此,基于国际税收竞争视角,重点对中国税制的国际竞争力进行评析,分析表明中国税制具有一定的国际竞争力,但诸多方面仍有待完善。在此基础上,借鉴国际经验建立具有竞争性的中国税制,确定合理的宏观税负水平,同时还需加强"税收文化"的建设,建立国际税收协调机制,以应对日益激烈的国际税收竞争。     

EU regional policy and tax competition

The European Union (EU) provides coordination and financing of trans-European transport infrastructures, i.e. roads and railways, which link the EU member states and reduce the cost of transport and mobility. This raises the question of whether EU involvement in this area is justified by inefficiencies of national infrastructure policies. Moreover, an often expressed concern is that policies enhancing mobility may boost tax competition. We analyze these questions using a model where countries compete for the location of profitable firms. We show that a coordination of investment in transport cost reducing infrastructures within union countries enhances welfare and mitigates tax competition. In contrast, with regard to union-periphery infrastructure, the union has an interest in a coordinated reduction of investment expenditures. Here, the effects on tax competition are ambiguous. Our results provide a rationale for EU-level regional policy that supports the development of intra-union infrastructure.     

Public investment,taxation, and long-run output in economies with multi-level governments

This paper examines the dynamic effects of taxation and investment on the steady state output level of an economy. A simple neoclassical growth model with different tiers of government is developed. The initial focus is on governments that aim to maximise their citizens' welfare and economic performance by providing consumption goods for private consumption and public capital for private production. It is shown that a long-run per capita output maximising tax rate can be derived and that there also exists an optimal degree of fiscal decentralisation. The analysis then extends to the case where governments attempt instead to maximise their own tax revenue to fund expenditures which do not contribute to the utility of their citizens. Three different cases of taxation arrangement are considered: tax competition, tax sharing, and tax coordination. The modeling shows that intensifying tax competition will lead to an increase in the aggregate tax rate as compared to the cases of sharing and coordination amongst governments. These tax rates are both higher than the long-run per capita output maximising rate that was implied under the welfare maximising government scenario.     

Globalization, Asymmetric Tax Competition, and Fiscal Equalization

Trade integration and the increasing mobility of firms have raised the need for international coordination in corporate tax. In this paper, we study the ability of fiscal equalization to avoid the misallocation of capital across asymmetric countries arising from tax competition. Such a reform respects the principle according to which the tax decision is entirely left up to the nation and links nations engaged in strategic tax policy by transfers. We use a model of trade and location where firms produce under imperfect competition. Our analysis suggests that falling trade costs increase the distortion created by tax competition in the international allocation of production. However, we show that fiscal equalization based on differences in tax revenues or tax base can implement a more efficient tax wedge and spatial allocation of the tax base.     

Welfare‐ and Revenue‐Enhancing Tariff and Tax Reform under Imperfect Competition

We examine welfare and revenue effects of tariff and tax reform in a country importing final and intermediate goods, both of which are produced under imperfect competition. We consider two reform strategies. First, lower the sum of a consumption tax and a tariff on the intermediate good, and leave the sum of the consumption tax and a tariff on the final good unchanged. Second, lower the former and change the latter to leave government revenue unchanged. We specify conditions under which each reform strategy raises welfare without decreasing government revenue.     

International Competition in one Country: Comparative Static Analysis

A comparative static analysis is conducted for international competition among several domestic and foreign firms in one country in relation to a change in the domestic firms' cost parameter, which could be technological, export subsidy or tax, or pollution tax rate. The general result is made more transparent for some simple cases. The effects of entry of a new domestic firm are analyzed.     

Tax harmonization and tax competition in the European Union: Lessons from Switzerland

This paper presents empirical evidence on individual income tax competition in Switzerland. Tax competition has some influence on the spread of people with high income over the cantons, and it is partly capitalised in dwelling rents. However, it neither leads to a collapse of public good supply nor makes redistribution by the fiscal authorities impossible. Thus, if tax competition works well in Switzerland there is no reason why it should have disastrous effects in a future European Union.