This Paper considers tax competition and tax harmonization in the presence of agglomeration forces and falling trade costs. With agglomerative forces operating, industry is not indifferent to location in equilibrium, so perfectly mobile capital becomes a quasi-fixed factor. This suggests that...

Almost all the literature on tax competition in the presence of multinationals (MNCs) and profit shifting ignores trade costs. This Paper studies how economic integration, in terms of reduced trade costs and internationalization of ownership, affects tax competition and equilibrium corporate...

This paper presents evidence of profit shifting in response to differences in corporate tax rates for a large selection of OECD countries. In our estimates we control for the effects of tax rate changes on real activity. Our baseline estimates suggest that, on average, a unilateral increase in...

The standard race-to-the-bottom result is curious in one respect. If a nation wants to attract foreign capital, providing the optimal level of public amenities (and thus charging the optimal tax rate) would seem optimal. This conjecture fails in the standard tax competition model since foreign...

This Paper analyses industrial policy in a high wage open economy hosting an agglomeration consisting of vertically linked upstream and downstream firms. We show that optimal policy towards upstream industries typically differ from the optimal policy towards downstream industries....

This Handbook entry presents a conceptual, normative overview of the subject of taxation. It emphasizes the relationships among the main functions of taxation—notably, raising revenue, redistributing income, and correcting externalities—and the mapping between these functions and various...

The 'juste retour' attitude, namely each EU member state's priority for securing the best possible individual net financial position vis-à-vis the community budget over any other consideration concerning the community budget is stronger than ever. The differences across member states in terms...

In times of crisis and uncertainty the countries look for solutions that will protect tax revenues from tax base erosion. In attempts of increasing the level of tax collection they try to fight tax avoidance and tax evasion. Among the difficult challenges faced by governments, there are also...

This paper assesses the effects of applying VAT or a sales tax on (intermediate or final) sales of the financial sector. It uses a CGE Model calibrated for a small open economy. It highlights the differentiated sectoral and redistributional effects of these taxes and shows the importance of the...