This paper highlights macroeconomic issues pertinent to the understanding of the international and domestic effects of international VAT harmonization. It outlines elements of the policies of VAT harmonization envisaged for Europe of 1992, and develops a basic tax model which is suitable for the...

To what degree will the recent free-trade agreement create pressure on the U.S. and Canada to modify, and perhaps harmonize, their tax systems? What will be the implications of the more extensive policy changes now going on within the E.C.? This paper examines the types of pressures for reform...

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in the landmark 2018 Wayfair case greatly improved state governments' ability to enforce collection of sales taxes on a destination basis. This has reduced state tax competition with an essentially-untaxed internet, but has brought traditional cross-border...

Switzerland could be considered as a test case for international corporate-tax policy coordination. It is a federation of 26 fiscally autonomous cantons that have been taxing corporate profits more or less independently for over a century. We document and discuss corporate taxation in...

Tax harmonization entails a uniform rate that may not suit all governments. Harmonization can advance collective governmental objectives only if the standard deviation of tax rates is less than the average downward effect of tax competition on rates. Since an efficient harmonized tax rate undoes...

Basic economic theory identifies a number of efficiency gains that derive from international capital mobility. But just as free trade in goods, there is no guarantee that capital mobility makes everyone better off. Consequently, capital mobility may be politically unsustainable even though it...

Using a human capital based growth model, we show the essential role of labor mobility and cross-country tax harmonization in equalizing income levels of countries that start off from different initial income positions. Knowledge spillovers cum labor mobility are the driving forces behind the...

The paper highlights key considerations necessary for the analysis of international tax competition and the desirability of international tax harmonization. The analysis of a Nash-Cournot international tax competition is carried out for (1) competing countries that cannot exercise significant...

Opening Europe's borders in 1993 makes the allocation of resources more vulnerable to differences in the national tax rates. The first part of the paper demonstrates that direct consumer purchases will imply distortions resulting from diverging VAT rates and it clarifies why the frequently cited...