This paper argues that the large reduction in corporate tax rates and only gradual widening of tax bases in many countries over the last decades are consistent with tougher international competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). To make this point we develop a model in which governments...

This paper analyses the development of the ratio of corporate taxes to wage taxes using a simple political economy model with internationally mobile and immobile firms. Among other results, our model predicts that countries reduce their corporate tax rate, relative to the wage tax, either when...

This paper analyzes tax competition when welfare maximizing jurisdictions levy source-based corporate taxes and multinational enterprises choose tax-efficient capital-to-debt ratios. Under separate accounting, multinationals shift debt from low-tax to high-tax countries. The Nash equilibrium of...

Rent-sharing between firm owners and workers is a robust empirical finding. If workers bargain with firms, information on the actual surplus is essential. When the firm can use profit shifting to create private information on the surplus, it can thereby reduce its wage bill. We study how rent...

State borders create a discontinuous tax treatment of retail sales. In a Nash game, local tax rates will be higher on the low-state-tax side of a border. Local taxes will decrease from the nearest high-tax border and increase from the low-tax border. Using driving time from state borders and all...

We examine how the bidding environment may affect the outcome of tax competition between two countries (or two regions) in attracting a firm’s foreign direct investment (FDI).We compare the equilibrium location choice and payoffs from an English auction, with both complete and incomplete...

We analyze a sequential game between two symmetric countries when firms can invest in a multinational structure that confers tax savings. Governments are able to commit to long-run tax discrimination policies before firms' decisions are made and before statutory capital tax rates are chosen...

Thin capitalization rules have become an important element in the corporate tax systems of developed countries. This paper sets up a model where national and multinational firms choose tax-efficient financial structures and countries compete for multinational firms through statutory tax rates...

An important puzzle in corporate taxation is that effective tax rates have fallen significantly while tax revenue has simultaneously risen in most countries. Moreover, the gross profitability of firms seems to be lower in high-tax countries, even though standard models of international...

In models of economic geography, plant-level scale economies and trade costs create incentives for spatial agglomeration of production into a manufacturing core and agricultural periphery, creating regional income differentials. We examine tax competition between national governments to...