Choix d'imposition et interactions spatiales entre collectivités locales. Un test sur les départements français

This article provides an empirical test for the existence of spatial tax interactions among French sub-national jurisdictions at the département level. We estimate a spatial model of interdependent tax choices on a 1999 data set of the four main taxes and the usual socio-economic variables. We find evidence of significant horizontal tax interactions for all taxes except for the tax on housing levied on households. Therefore, we conclude that empirical evidence is in favor of the hypothesis that jurisdictions at the département level compete for economic activities, but not for households. We demonstrate that this conclusion is in line either with yardstick competition models à la Besley and Case (1995a) or with tax competition models à la Wildasin (1988).