IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rripxx/v23y2016i2p290-315.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dictators don't compete: autocracy, democracy, and tax competition

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Genschel
  • Hanna Lierse
  • Laura Seelkopf

Abstract

It pays to be a tax haven. Ireland has become rich that way. Why do not all countries cut their capital taxes to get wealthy? One reason is structural. As the standard model of tax competition explains, small countries gain from competitive tax cuts while large countries suffer. Yet not all small (large) countries have low (high) capital taxes. Why? The reason, we argue, is political. While the standard model assumes governments to be democratic, more than a third of countries worldwide are non-democratic. We explain theoretically why autocracies are less likely to adjust to competitive constraints and test our argument empirically against data on the corporate tax policy of 99 countries from 1999 to 2011.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Genschel & Hanna Lierse & Laura Seelkopf, 2016. "Dictators don't compete: autocracy, democracy, and tax competition," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 290-315, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:23:y:2016:i:2:p:290-315
    DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2016.1152995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2016.1152995
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09692290.2016.1152995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael P. Devereux & Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "The Corporate Income Tax: international trends and options for fundamental reform," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 264, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422.
    3. Michael P. Devereux & Simon Loretz, 2013. "What Do We Know About Corporate Tax Competition?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(3), pages 745-774, September.
    4. Tanzi, Vito & Zee, Howell H., 2000. "Tax Policy for Emerging Markets: Developing Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(2), pages 299-322, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cerami, Alfio, 2023. "Self-Undermining Policy Feedback and Social Policy Making in Iraq," MPRA Paper 116381, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Cerami, Alfio, 2018. "The Lights of Iraq: Electricity Usage and the Iraqi War-fare Regime," MPRA Paper 87276, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kym Anderson & Gordon Rausser & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Political Economy of Public Policies: Insights from Distortions to Agricultural and Food Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 423-477, June.
    2. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Katsuyuki Naito & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Inequality, extractive institutions, and growth in nondemocratic regimes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 115-142, January.
    3. Ganghof, Steffen & Genschel, Philipp, 2007. "Taxation and Democracy in the EU," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Marcus André Melo & Armando Barrientos & André Canuto Coelho, 2014. "Taxation, redistribution and the social contract in Brazil," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series iriba_wp11, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    5. Leanora Alecia Brown & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2015. "International Debt Forgiveness: Who Gets Picked and Its Effect On The Tax Effort Of Developing Countries," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1504, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    6. John E. Anderson, 2014. "Informal Payments to the Tax Collector in Transition Countries," Ekonomi-tek - International Economics Journal, Turkish Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-26, May.
    7. Godin, M. & Hindriks, J., 2015. "A Review of Critical Issues on Tax Design and Tax Administration in a Global Economy and Developing Countries," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015028, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Nancy Birdsall & Liliana Rojas-Suarez (ed.), 2004. "Financing Development: The Power of Regionalism," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 359, July.
    9. Milan Sedmihradsky & Stanislav Klazar, 2002. "Tax Competition for FDI in Central-European Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 647, CESifo.
    10. Keita, Kady & Rabaud, Isabelle & Turcu, Camelia, 2023. "Fiscal outcomes, current account imbalances, and institutions in Europe: Exploring nonlinearities," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 121-134.
    11. Ali Merima & Shifa Abdulaziz B. & Shimeles Abebe & Woldeyes Firew, 2017. "Working Paper 290 - Building Fiscal Capacity The role of ICT," Working Paper Series 2404, African Development Bank.
    12. Merima Ali & Abdulaziz B. Shifa & Abebe Shimeles & Firew Woldeyes, 2021. "Building Fiscal Capacity in Developing Countries: Evidence on the Role of Information Technology," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(3), pages 591-620.
    13. Kasuga, Hidefumi & Morita, Yuichi, 2012. "Aid effectiveness, governance and public investment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 514-521.
    14. Céline DE QUATREBARBES & Luc SAVARD & Dorothée BOCCANFUSO, 2011. "Can the removal of VAT Exemptions support the Poor? The Case of Niger," Working Papers 201106, CERDI.
    15. Kodjo Adandohoin, 2021. "Tax transition in developing countries: do value added tax and excises really work?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 379-424, May.
    16. Garcia Penalosa, Cecilia & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2005. "Second-best optimal taxation of capital and labor in a developing economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 1045-1074, June.
    17. Manamba Epaphra, & John Massawe,, 2017. "Corruption, governance and tax revenues in Africa," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 13(4), pages 439-467, October.
    18. Zee, Howell H. & Stotsky, Janet G. & Ley, Eduardo, 2002. "Tax Incentives for Business Investment: A Primer for Policy Makers in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 1497-1516, September.
    19. Jorge Martinez & Baoyun Qian & Shuilin Wang & Heng-fu Zou, 2006. "Local Public Finance in China: Revenues of Local Governments," CEMA Working Papers 551, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
    20. Makmun Syadullah, 2015. "Governance and Tax Revenue in Asean Countries," Journal of Social and Development Sciences, AMH International, vol. 6(2), pages 76-88.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:23:y:2016:i:2:p:290-315. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rrip20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.