This paper analyses the development of the ratio of corporate taxes to wage taxes using a simple political economy model with internationally mobile and immobile firms. Among other results, our model predicts that countries reduce their corporate tax rate, relative to the wage tax, either when...

This paper is concerned with a policy oriented macroeconomic experiment involving an 'international' economy with a relatively small 'home' country and a large 'foreign' country. It compares the economic performance of two alternative tax systems as a means to finance unemployment benefits: a...

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...

For many years there have been political intentions to harmonize tax rates in Europe. As to capital income taxation, competition is often seen to be especially harmful. Facing a high degree of international capital mobility, every country is expected to reduce its tax rate in order to attract...

Eine Harmonisierung der Steuern auf Kapitaleinkommen wird häufig gefordert, weil sonst bei hoher Kapitalmobilität ein Steuersenkungswettlauf eintrete mit der Folge, dass der Staat seine eigentlichen Aufgaben nicht wahrnehmen kann. Tatsächlich sind die Indizien für ein "race to the bottom"...

It is often feared that tax competition might lead to a "race to the bottom". The consequence of a decline of tax rates on capital income would be shrinking capital income tax revenues and difficulties for national governments to perform their usual tasks. The paper analyzes what happened to tax...

In this paper we employ a tax-competition model to demonstrate that in the presence of migration the re-distributive advantage of a non-linear income tax system over a linear (flat) one is significantly mitigated relative to the autarky (no-migration) equilibrium. When migration threats are...

It is often argued that tax competition may lead to a 'race to the bottom'. This result may indeed hold in the case of factor mobility (such as capital). However, in this paper we emphasize the unique feature of labor migration, that may nullify the'race to the bottom' hypothesis. Labor...

Luxemburg gehört zu den Gewinnern des Steuerwettbewerbs bei Abgaben auf spezielle Güter wie Kraftstoffe, Tabakwaren und Kaffee. Das Papier modelliert das Aufkommen der Steuern auf Benzin und Diesel in Luxemburg auf der Basis von Daten des Jahres 2005. Abweichend von bisherigen Studien...

While there is a large and growing number of studies on the determinants of corporate tax rates, the literature has so far ignored the fact that the behavior of governments in setting tax rates is often best described as a discrete choice decision problem. We set up an empirical model that...