There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an optimal tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be … reviews the political economics literature on tax systems and reforms to see whether political mechanisms allow us to better … understand why tax systems look the way they look. Finally, we exploit a database of reforms in labour taxation in the European …

I analyze the dynamic effects of tax competition on public budget deficits. I find that stronger tax competition leads … mobility, further liberalization leads to external imbalances and diverging fiscal deficits while corporate tax rates converge …. Consistent with theory, I find that stronger tax competition increases deficits in a sample of OECD countries, controlling for …

democracies; (2) the nature and determinants of modern tax structures; and (3) redistribution in pluralistic societies over … three most important issues in the field: (1) the evolution of the power to tax in (what are now) the mature constitutional …

distribution, review current capital tax practices and empirical findings regarding their effects on economic activity. The paper … implications for tax policy. …

We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of … the local level. This renders the degree of tax centralization and the tax burden determinate even if none of the …

-best level, or for a tax delivering the first-best environmental protection level. Despite its under-provision of environmental … protection, the standard dominates the tax from a welfare perspective due to its higher productive efficiency, i.e., a smaller … gap between the environmental qualities of the two goods supplied. In stark contrast, voters unanimously prefer a tax to a …

We review the literature on the public choice approach to explaining redistribution policies. The focus is on policies … that are pursued with the sole reason to redistribute initial endowments. Moreover, we restrict ourselves to redistribution … in democracies. In democratic settings, generic redistribution games lack equilibria. Structure-inducing rules that give …