In this paper, we test one of the fundamental assumptions in the tax competition literature, namely, that a country's taxable income depends on the tax policies pursued in the domestic and in neighbouring countries. Based on a panel of annual data of 14 Western European countries spanning the...

An international tax haven is usually a low-tax jurisdiction that seeks to attract investment by foreign investors. But, there are many state and local jurisdictions within federal systems that set zero tax rates on personal or corporate income, consumption, property, and wealth in an effort to...

A theoretical analysis considers the impact of a typical system of redistributive ?fiscal equalization? transfers on the taxing effort of local jurisdictions. More specifically, it shows that the marginal contribution rate, i.e. the rate at which an increase in the tax base reduces those...

Recent literature has emphasized that redistributive grant systems may tend to internalize fiscal externalities arising from tax competition. This paper further explores the conditions under which local grant systems enforced by the state government will enhance efficiency. A system of...

To what extent do countries' corporate income tax (CIT) rates attract foreign tax bases? What are the revenue implications of a unilateral tax reduction when tax bases are internationally mobile? These questions are explored using a panel of annual data from 17 OECD countries spanning the period...

This paper examines the system of fiscal equalisation among local jurisdictionsin the state of Lower Saxony. The incentives emanating from this system for the choices of the local business tax rates are quantified. For this purpose, we compute for all municipalities the rate by which grants are...

This paper addresses the problem of partial tax coordination among regional or national sovereign governments in a repeated game setting. We show that partial tax coordination is more likely to prevail if the number of regions in a coalition subgroup is smaller and the number of existing regions...

We study the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth for 23 OECD countries from 1975 to 2001 by using new panel data on sub-federal tax autonomy. While initial estimations suggest that fiscal decentralization causes lower growth rates, we find that this result is not...

Dramatic declines in capital tax rates among U.S. states and European countries have been linked by many commentators to tax competition and an inevitable race to the bottom. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the reaction of capital tax policy in a given U.S. state to changes in...

We consider the hold-up problem between a foreign direct investor and the government(s) in a host country with weak governmental structure and lack of power to commit. Using Nash threats, we show that an efficient investment level can be sustained for a sufficiently high discount factor and ask...