In a common market with costless mobility of all factors, regional governments can attract mobile rms by granting subsidies which must be nanced out of wage taxes on mobile labour. Since rms locate where subsidies are highest and workers settle where taxes are lowest, government are forced "in the splits" (double Bertrand-type tax competition). We assume that without government intervention the...

126 words) Following the seminal work of late nineteenth century economist Etienne Laspeyres we analyse the incidence of the Prussian milling and slaughter tax shortly before its repeal in 1875. A comparison of flour prices in cities which levied this tax with cities that did not reveals unusually strong tax overshifting. Modern theories explain overshifting of a specific tax with quality impro...

Beginning with Tiebout (1956), numerous studies have argued that we should expect to see differences in public services among localities as a result of people “voting with their feet”. Here, we consider differentiation in public services as a way of reducing competition among localities (cities). If cities finance their public services with a property tax that generates “tax competition”, we fi...

A recent empirical literature has arisen documenting the response of one nation’s policy choices, including tax, environmental, and labour policies, to those of others. This has been largely interpreted as evidence of competition, be it for mobile resources (like FDI, taxable book income, etc.) or yardstick. We present a third explanation based on learning. When countries’ tax choices reflect p...

This paper empirically examines whether expansion of the EU has increased international tax competition. To do so, we use a simple model of tax competition to determine how a given country weights the taxes of others when choosing its own tax. This indicates that the market potential of a country (which includes both domestic consumption and exports) is the appropriate weight. This is an improv...

This paper examines the implications of tax evasion for "scal competition and tax harmonization policies in an economic union. First, for symmetric countries, it proves that the equilibrium values of the tax and audit rates are less than optimal. Tax harmonization alone will also lead to a less than optimal audit rate. Second, for asymmetric countries, the paper shows that integration may turn ...

This paper analyzes the incentives for governments to impose export subsidies when firms invest in a cost saving technology before market competition. Governments first impose an export subsidy or a tax. After observing export policy, firms invest in cost reducing R&D and subsequently compete in the market. Governments subsidize exports under Cournot competition. Under Bertrand competition, exp...

We consider the joint effect of profit and Pigouvian taxation in a model of imperfect competition. We show that, when both profit taxation and Pigouvian taxation/subsidy are used, the former is no longer neutral. The two fiscal tools are substitutes, and for any profit taxation rate there exists a unique Pigouvian tax that entails the first best outcome as an equilibrium. Our analysis therefore...

Numerous (high-tax) countries presume that multinational firms use their transferpricing policies to shift profits into countries with lower tax rates. To avoid the corresponding loss in tax revenues, tax authorities develop constantly tightening rules to curb transfer-price distortions. Affected firms include the decision of compliance to these rules into their strategic considerations. In a s...

This paper analyzes features of perfect taxation – also known as optimal taxation – when one or more private markets is imperfectly competitive. Governments with perfect information and access to lump-sum taxes can provide corrective subsidies that render outcomes efficient in the presence of imperfect competition. Relaxing either of these two conditions removes the government’s ability to supp...