IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ieb/wpaper/doc2010-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax mix corners and other kinks

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Revelli

    (University of Torino)

Abstract

This paper models the local tax mix determination process in the presence of state-wide tax limitations and shows how excess sensitivity of local public spending to grants (the conventionally and somewhat misleadingly called flypaper effect) arises in the endogenously generated constrained tax mix and cannot in general be taken as a symptom of local government overspending. By means of a panel data switching regression approach that allows for fixed effects and endogenous selection, the paper exploits the clustering of Italian Provinces at the corners produced by upper and lower tax limitations, and provides evidence of considerable cap-generated excess sensitivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Revelli, 2010. "Tax mix corners and other kinks," Working Papers 2010/50, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
  • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2010-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2010-IEB-WorkingPaper-50.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nechyba, Thomas J, 1997. "Local Property and State Income Taxes: The Role of Interjurisdictional Competition and Collusion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 351-384, April.
    2. Gordon, Nora, 2004. "Do federal grants boost school spending? Evidence from Title I," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1771-1792, August.
    3. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    4. Solé-Ollé, Albert & Sorribas-Navarro, Pilar, 2008. "The effects of partisan alignment on the allocation of intergovernmental transfers. Differences-in-differences estimates for Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(12), pages 2302-2319, December.
    5. J. Scott Shonkwiler & Steven T. Yen, 1999. "Two-Step Estimation of a Censored System of Equations," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(4), pages 972-982.
    6. Douglas Sutherland & Robert Price & Isabelle Joumard, 2006. "Sub-central government fiscal rules," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2005(2), pages 141-181.
    7. Federico Revelli, 2013. "Tax Mix Corners and Other Kinks," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 741-776.
    8. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & Stephen D. Oliner, 2006. "Investment Behavior, Observable Expectations, and Internal Funds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 796-810, June.
    9. Charlier, Erwin & Melenberg, Bertrand & van Soest, Arthur, 2001. "An analysis of housing expenditure using semiparametric models and panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 71-107, March.
    10. Vigdor, Jacob L, 2004. "Other People's Taxes: Nonresident Voters and Statewide Limitation of Local Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(2), pages 453-476, October.
    11. Tullio Jappelli & Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Nicholas S. Souleles, 1998. "Testing For Liquidity Constraints In Euler Equations With Complementary Data Sources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 251-262, May.
    12. Stephen Calabrese & Dennis Epple, 2010. "On the political economy of tax limits," Working Papers 2010/14, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Calabrese, Stephen & Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard, 2007. "On the political economy of zoning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 25-49, February.
    14. Hettich, Walter & Winer, Stanley, 1984. "A positive model of tax structure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 67-87, June.
    15. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1995. "Selection corrections for panel data models under conditional mean independence assumptions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 115-132, July.
    16. Stephen Bond & Costas Meghir, 1994. "Dynamic Investment Models and the Firm's Financial Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(2), pages 197-222.
    17. Ekaterini Kyriazidou, 1997. "Estimation of a Panel Data Sample Selection Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(6), pages 1335-1364, November.
    18. A. Abigail Payne, 2009. "Does Government Funding Change Behavior? An Empirical Analysis of Crowd-Out," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 23, pages 159-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    20. Becker, Gary S & Mulligan, Casey B, 2003. "Deadweight Costs and the Size of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 293-340, October.
    21. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1974. "Multivariate Regression and Simultaneous Equation Models when the Dependent Variables Are Truncated Normal," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(6), pages 999-1012, November.
    22. Chamberlain, Gary, 1982. "Multivariate regression models for panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 5-46, January.
    23. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    24. Xiaoqiang Hu & Fabio Schiantarelli, 1998. "Investment And Capital Market Imperfections: A Switching Regression Approach Using U.S. Firm Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 466-479, August.
    25. Steven T. Yen & Biing-Hwan Lin, 2006. "A Sample Selection Approach to Censored Demand Systems," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(3), pages 742-749.
    26. Hamilton, Jonathan H., 1986. "The flypaper effect and the deadweight loss from taxation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 148-155, March.
    27. Hettich, Walter & Winer, Stanley L, 1988. "Economic and Political Foundations of Tax Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 701-712, September.
    28. Heien, Dale & Wessells, Cathy Roheim, 1990. "Demand Systems Estimation with Microdata: A Censored Regression Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(3), pages 365-371, July.
    29. Stine, William F., 1994. "Is Local Government Revenue Response to Federal Aid Symmetrical? Evidence from Pennsylvania County Governments in a Era of Retrenchment," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 47(4), pages 799-816, December.
    30. Runkle, David E., 1991. "Liquidity constraints and the permanent-income hypothesis : Evidence from panel data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 73-98, February.
    31. Lars-Erik Borge & Per Tovmo, 2009. "Myopic or Constrained by Balanced-Budget Rules? The Intertemporal Spending Behavior of Norwegian Local Governments," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 65(2), pages 200-219, June.
    32. Gamkhar, Shama & Oates, Wallace E., 1996. "Asymmetries in the Response to Increases and Decreases in Intergovernmental Grants: Some Empirical Findings," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 49(4), pages 501-12, December.
    33. Arulampalam, Wiji & Dasgupta, Sugato & Dhillon, Amrita & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2009. "Electoral goals and center-state transfers: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 103-119, January.
    34. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    35. Shama Gamkhar & Wallace Oates & Shama Gamkhar & Wallace Oates, 2004. "Asymmetries in the Response to Increases and Decreases in Intergovernmental Grants: Some Empirical Findings," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 15, pages 261-272, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    36. Bev Dahlby, 2011. "The marginal cost of public funds and the flypaper effect," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(3), pages 304-321, June.
    37. Justin H. Phillips, 2010. "An Institutional Explanation for the Stickiness of Federal Grants," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 243-264.
    38. Baicker, Katherine, 2001. "Government decision-making and the incidence of federal mandates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 147-194, November.
    39. Federico Revelli, 2013. "Tax Mix Corners and Other Kinks," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 741-776.
    40. Stephen Calabrese & Dennis Epple, 2010. "On the political economy of tax limits," Working Papers 2010/14, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    41. Isabelle Joumard & Per Mathis Kongsrud, 2003. "Fiscal Relations across Government Levels," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(1), pages 155-229.
    42. Giorgio Zanarone, 2009. "Vertical Restraints and the Law: Evidence from Automobile Franchising," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 691-700, November.
    43. repec:fth:pennfi:69 is not listed on IDEAS
    44. Christian Dustmann & María Engracia Rochina-Barrachina, 2007. "Selection correction in panel data models: An application to the estimation of females' wage equations," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 10(2), pages 263-293, July.
    45. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1981. "The Adjustment of Consumption to Changing Expectations about Future Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 974-1009, October.
    46. Byron Lutz, 2010. "Taxation with Representation: Intergovernmental Grants in a Plebiscite Democracy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(2), pages 316-332, May.
    47. Brian Knight, 2002. "Endogenous Federal Grants and Crowd-out of State Government Spending: Theory and Evidence from the Federal Highway Aid Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 71-92, March.
    48. Lawrence Kenny & Stanley Winer, 2006. "Tax Systems in the World: An Empirical Investigation into the Importance of Tax Bases, Administration Costs, Scale and Political Regime," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(2), pages 181-215, May.
    49. Stine, William F., 1994. "Is Local Government Revenue Response to Federal Aid Symmetrical? Evidence From Pennsylvania County Governments in a Era of Retrenchment," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(4), pages 799-816, December.
    50. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    51. James R. Hines & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "The Flypaper Effect," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 217-226, Fall.
    52. Anderson, Nathan B., 2006. "Property Tax Limitations: An Interpretative Review," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(3), pages 685-694, September.
    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. Federico Revelli, 2013. "Tax Mix Corners and Other Kinks," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 741-776.
    2. Stijn Goeminne & Carine Smolders & Elke Vandorpe, 2017. "The real impact of a one-off fiscal restriction: empirical evidence of a flypaper effect in Flemish municipalities," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 285-292, June.
    3. Federico Revelli, 2013. "Tax limits and local democracy," Working Papers 2013/29, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. Federico Revelli, 2012. "Business taxation and economic performance in hierarchical government structures," Working Papers 2012/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    5. Revelli, Federico, 2013. "Tax Limits and Local Democracy," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201336, University of Turin.
    6. Chirok Han & Goeun Lee, 2017. "Efficient Estimation of Linear Panel Data Models with Sample Selection and Fixed Effects," Discussion Paper Series 1707, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    7. Bram Mahieu & Benny Geys & Bruno Heyndels, 2017. "Fiscal Fairness as a Political Argument," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 622-640, November.
    8. Revelli Federico, 2012. "Business taxation and economic performance in hierarchical government structures," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201204, University of Turin.

    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. Manuel E. Lago & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2022. "On the effects of intergovernmental grants: a survey," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 2204, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    2. Bev Dahlby & Ergete Ferede, 2016. "The stimulative effects of intergovernmental grants and the marginal cost of public funds," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(1), pages 114-139, February.
    3. Helm, Ines & Stuhler, Jan, 2021. "The Dynamic Response of Municipal Budgets to Revenue Shocks," IZA Discussion Papers 14369, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Flynn, Patrick & Smith, Tucker, 2022. "Rivers, lakes and revenue streams: The heterogeneous effects of Clean Water Act grants on local spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    5. Leonel Muinelo-Gallo, 2021. "Testing regional intergovernmental transfers effects in Uruguay," Sobre México. Revista de Economía, Sobre México. Temas en economía, vol. 2(4), pages 6-38.
    6. Becker, Johannes & Hopp, Daniel & Kriebel, Michael, 2020. "Mental accounting of public funds – The flypaper effect in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 321-336.
    7. Federico Revelli, 2012. "Business taxation and economic performance in hierarchical government structures," Working Papers 2012/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. Santiago Lago-Peñas, 2008. "Local Governments' Asymmetric Reactions to Grants," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(2), pages 219-242, March.
    9. Goodspeed, Timothy J., 1998. "The Relationship Between State Income Taxes and Local Property Taxes: Education Finance in New Jersey," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(2), pages 219-238, June.
    10. Heléne Lundqvist, 2015. "Granting public or private consumption? Effects of grants on local public spending and income taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(1), pages 41-72, February.
    11. Revelli Federico, 2012. "Business taxation and economic performance in hierarchical government structures," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201204, University of Turin.
    12. Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2016. "Intergovernmental Transfers, Local Fiscal Policy, and the Flypaper Effect: Evidence from a German State," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 72(1), pages 1-40, March.
    13. Coad, Alex, 2010. "Neoclassical vs evolutionary theories of financial constraints: Critique and prospectus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 206-218, August.
    14. Marcel Thum & Thomas Fester & Andreas Kappler & Helmut Seitz, 2005. "Öffentliche Infrastruktur und kommunale Finanzen : Gutachten im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Verkehr, Bau- und Wohnungswesen und des Bundesamtes für Bauwesen und Raumordnung," ifo Dresden Studien, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 37, July.
    15. Julia Darby & Anton Muscatelli & Graeme Roy, 2006. "Asymmetries in the Responses of Sub-Central Governments to Changes in Grants: Evidence From an Event Study," ERSA conference papers ersa06p508, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Muinelo-Gallo, Leonel & Azar, Paola, 2018. "Testing regional intergovernmental transfers asymmetries in Uruguay," MPRA Paper 90245, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. John Ashworth & Bruno Heyndels, 2000. "Politicians' Opinions on Tax Reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 117-138, April.
    18. Dahlberg, Matz & Mörk, Eva & Rattsø, Jørn & Ågren, Hanna, 2008. "Using a discontinuous grant rule to identify the effect of grants on local taxes and spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(12), pages 2320-2335, December.
    19. Singhal, Monica, 2008. "Special interest groups and the allocation of public funds," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 548-564, April.
    20. Brian Knight, 2002. "Endogenous Federal Grants and Crowd-out of State Government Spending: Theory and Evidence from the Federal Highway Aid Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 71-92, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Flypaper effect; excess sensitivity; tax mix; switching regression; endogenous selection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures

    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:ieb:wpaper:doc2010-50. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iebubes.html .

    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.