Tax competition arguments suggest that governements that operate in an open economy (such as local governments) should not and will not rely on non-benefit taxes, such as the income tax. Yet we observe reliance on income taxes by local governments in many countries, and such reliance changes...

This paper estimates Nash-type fiscal reaction functions for European governments competing for revenue from diesel excises. It appears that European governments strategically set their excise levels by responding to their neighbors' tax rates. This provides evidence for the presence of tax...

This paper argues that the key issue for defining and solving the Eurozone's (EZ) difficulties lies in readjusting the relationship between the centre and the periphery of the EZ. Our argument proceeds in two steps. Firstly, the basic finance problem of a centre-periphery system is captured by a...

This paper measures the net redistributive impact of the EU budget. It finds that for every € 1,000 difference in income per capita across countries, € 9 is offset by lower contributions to the budget and € 3 is offset by higher expenditures by the budget. The overall equalising effect is...

One key focus of the on-going debate on the integration of international financial markets have been measures to lengthen the maturity of foreign debt, as short-term debt is typically considered to be highly volatile. The transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe are one group of...

In this paper the impact of the corporate tax systems of the 15 EU-member states on the investment and the financing decision of an US multinational corporation is analysed. The calculation of the resulting effective marginal tax rates (EMTR) closely follow the model of King and Fullerton. There...