Dramatic declines in capital tax rates among U.S. states and European countries have been linked by many commentators to tax competition and an inevitable “race to the bottom.” This paper provides an empirical analysis of the reaction of capital tax policy in a given U.S. state to changes in...

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether politicians manipulate the timing of tax rate changes in a strategic way to maximize reelection prospects. To do so, we exploit the German local business tax as a testing ground which is set autonomously by German municipalities. As election dates...

Acting in the interest of their residents, within limits imposed by Federal statute and by the Constitution, states have incentives to impose taxes on the profits of corporations owned by nonresidents. This paper presents a model within which a state, using an apportionment formula that includes...

This paper investigates the effect of fiscal equalization on the efficiency properties of corporate income tax rates chosen by symmetric countries in a Nash tax competition game under the taxation principles of Separate Accounting and Formula Apportionment. Fiscal equalization ensures efficiency...

Though the U.S. federal investment tax credit (ITC) was permanently repealed in 1986, state-level ITCs have proliferated over the last few decades. Are these tax incentives effective in increasing investment within the state? How much of this increase is due to investment drawn away from other...

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 role of economic and financial openness as well as tax competition while allowing for dynamic adjustment to shocks and period-specific as...

In this paper, we analyse the role of mobility in tax and subsidy competition. Our primary result is that increasing ‘relocation’ mobility of firms leads to increasing ‘net’ tax revenues under fairly weak conditions. While enhanced relocation mobility intensifies tax competition, it...

France has a track record of persistent general government deficits, partly reflecting pro-cyclical fiscal policies in upswings. This has resulted in a quadrupling of its public debt-to-GDP ratio since the 1970s to above 80% of GDP. Reducing public debt is crucial because a high level of public...

As with the market for goods and services, democratic competition involves political parties offering their services (policy programs) to citizen-consumers who vote for their preferred partisan supplier. Little is known about the partial effect of a shift in parties’ seat shares for given...

Itaya et al. (2014) study the conditions for sustainability and stability of capital tax coordination in a repeated game model with tax-revenue maximizing governments. One of their major results is that the grand tax coalition is never stable and sustainable. The purpose of this note is to prove...