In the European Union and in many federal and non-federal countries, the central government pays subsidies to poor regions. These subsidies are often seen as a redistributive measure which comes at the cost of an efficiency loss. This paper develops an economic rationale for regional policy...

It is well known that consumption-tax systems have several advantages over existing income-tax systems, such as greater administrative simplicity and intertemporal neutrality. Despite these advantages, proposals to introduce consumption taxes have only had very limited success. This paper...

Die Europäische Kommission hat kürzlich eine Reihe von Vorschlägen zur umfassenden Koordination der Unternehmensbesteuerung im europäischen Binnenmarkt vorgelegt. Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert diese Vorschläge und kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass sie keine überzeugende Grundlage für die...

This paper discusses the role of multinational firms and double taxation treaties for corporate income taxation in open economies. We show that it is optimal for a small open economy to levy positive corporate income taxes if multinational firms are taxed according to the full taxation after...

A large part of the literature on tax competition argues that capital tends to be undertaxed if there is no international coordination of tax policies. This result constitutes an important theoretical basis for practical tax policy in particular in the EU, where minimum tax rates have been...