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Home > Public Good Differentiation and the Intensity of Tax Competition

Public Good Differentiation and the Intensity of Tax Competition

Working paper
Author/s: 
Ben Zissimos and Myrna Wooders
Issue number: 
07-W10
Publisher: 
Vanderbilt University
Year: 
2007
PDF [1]
We show that, in a setting where tax competition promotes effciency, variation in the extent to which firms can use public goods to reduce costs brings about a reduction in the intensity of tax competition. This in turn brings about a loss of effciency. In this environment, a ‘minimum tax’ counters the reduction in the intensity of tax competition, thereby enhancing effciency. ‘Split-the-difference’ tax harmonization also potentially enhances effciency but would not be agreed upon by governments because it lowers the payoff to at least one of them. This paper also presents an explanation for how traditionally high-tax countries have continued to set taxes at a relatively high rate even as markets have become more integrated.
Tags: 
Political Economy [2]

Source URL:http://www.coalitiontheory.net/content/public-good-differentiation-and-intensity-tax-competition

Links
[1] http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu07-w10.pdf [2] http://www.coalitiontheory.net/research-areas/political-economy