Tax treaties are often viewed as a mechanism for eliminating tax competition, however this approach ignores the need for bargaining over the treaty’s terms. This paper focuses on how bargaining can affect the withholding taxes set under the treaty. In a simple framework, we develop hypotheses...

Bilateral tax treaties are an important method of international tax cooperation. I survey the existing literature on these agreements, highlighting the differences between the standard view that treaties increase foreign direct investment and the empirical evidence that finds no such effect. I...

This paper models tax competition for mobile firms that are differentiated by the amount of labor needed to cover fixed costs. Because tax competition affects the distribution of firms, it affects both relative equilibrium wages across countries and equilibrium prices. These in turn influence...

This paper models tax competition for mobile firms that are differentiated by the amount of labor needed to cover fixed costs. Because tax competition affects the distribution of firms, it affects both relative equilibrium wages across countries and equilibrium prices. These in turn influence...

This paper derives welfare equivalence of double taxation rules in a tax competition model with discriminatory home taxes and the ability to finance subsidiary operations with host country capital. For a more general model, we provide sufficient conditions on the number of host sectors and...

When a multinational firm invests in a country, potential host states compete for the firm by offering firm-specific tax reductions. Critics blast such incentives as a prisoner’s dilemma that transfers rents to the firm without affecting the investment decision. In fact, these incentives are...

The effects of bilateral tax treaties on FDI activity have been unexplored, despite significant ongoing activities by countries to negotiate and ratify these treaties. This paper estimates the impact of bilateral tax treaties using both U.S. inbound and outbound FDI over the period 1966-1992....

Tax incentives offered to attract firms engaged in foreign direct investment are often tied to performance requirements such as domestic content restrictions. The tax competition literature has repeatedly shown that competition between municipalities for mobile firms tends to drive taxes to low...

This paper studies non-cooperative tax competition between two countries for an international producer. The international producer chooses where to locate its headquarters and whether to serve the overseas market through exports or foreign direct investment (FDI). We show that, in the absence of...