IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v55y2004i3p498-513.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax competition in a fiscal union with decentralized leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Kothenburger, Marko

Abstract

This paper examines capital tax competition in the presence of an interstate transfer policy without federal commitment. Lack of commitment implies that tax policy is chosen prior to federal transfers. The paper’s main result is that ex-post federal policy internalizes horizontal fiscal externalities, insulating tax policy from capital mobility. Federal policy, however, introduces a new source of inefficiency unrelated to tax competition. Specifically, ex-post transfer payments prove to be equivalent to an interstate revenue-sharing system which may render federal intervention in the presence of fiscal externalities welfare-deteriorating relative to tax competition.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Kothenburger, Marko, 2004. "Tax competition in a fiscal union with decentralized leadership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 498-513, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:55:y:2004:i:3:p:498-513
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094-1190(03)00135-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Masayoshi Hayashi & Robin Boadway, 2001. "An empirical analysis of intergovernmental tax interaction: the case of business income taxes in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 481-503, May.
    2. John F. Helliwell & Ross McKitrick, 1999. "Comparing Capital Mobility Across Provincial and National Borders," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(5), pages 1164-1173, November.
    3. DePeter James A. & Myers Gordon M., 1994. "Strategic Capital Tax Competition: A Pecuniary Externality and a Corrective Device," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 66-78, July.
    4. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 1992. "The Politics of 1992: Fiscal Policy and European Integration," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(4), pages 689-701.
    5. Bev Dahlby, 1996. "Fiscal externalities and the design of intergovernmental grants," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 397-412, July.
    6. Bucovetsky, Sam & Wilson, John Douglas, 1991. "Tax competition with two tax instruments," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 333-350, November.
    7. Silva, Emilson C. D. & Caplan, Arthur J., 1997. "Transboundary Pollution Control in Federal Systems," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 173-186, October.
    8. Hoyt, William H., 2001. "Tax Policy Coordination, Vertical Externalities, and Optimal Taxation in a System of Hierarchical Governments," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 491-516, November.
    9. Kjetil Bjorvatn & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2002. "Tax Competition and International Public Goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(2), pages 111-120, March.
    10. Wildasin, David E., 1997. "Externalities and bailouts : hard and soft budget constraints in intergovernmental fiscal relations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1843, The World Bank.
    11. Michael Keen, 1998. "Vertical Tax Externalities in the Theory of Fiscal Federalism," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(3), pages 454-485, September.
    12. Torsten Persson, 1992. "Politics and economic policy," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 62, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    13. Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Vigneault, Marianne, 1998. "The consequences of overlapping tax bases for redistribution and public spending in a federation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 453-478, June.
    14. Poterba, James M., 1995. "Capital budgets, borrowing rules, and state capital spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 165-187, February.
    15. Eckhard Janeba, 2000. "Tax Competition When Governments Lack Commitment: Excess Capacity as a Countervailing Threat," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1508-1519, December.
    16. Robin Boadway & Michael Keen, 1996. "Efficiency and the optimal direction of federal-state transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(2), pages 137-155, May.
    17. Patrick J. Kehoe, 1989. "Policy Cooperation Among Benevolent Governments May Be Undesirable," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 289-296.
    18. Myers, Gordon M., 1990. "Optimality, free mobility, and the regional authority in a federation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 107-121, October.
    19. Michael Smart, 1998. "Taxation and Deadweight Loss in a System of Intergovernmental Transfers," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 189-206, February.
    20. Jonathan A. Rodden & Gunnar S. Eskeland (ed.), 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and the Challenge of Hard Budget Constraints," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262182297, December.
    21. George R. Zodrow & Peter Mieszkowski, 2019. "Pigou, Tiebout, Property Taxation, and the Underprovision of Local Public Goods," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 17, pages 525-542, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Carlo Perroni & Kimberley A. Scharf, 2001. "Tiebout with Politics: Capital Tax Competition and Constitutional Choices," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 133-154.
    23. Jan K. Brueckner, 2003. "Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 175-188, April.
    24. Qian, Yingyi & Roland, Gerard, 1998. "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1143-1162, December.
    25. Wildasin, David E., 1989. "Interjurisdictional capital mobility: Fiscal externality and a corrective subsidy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 193-212, March.
    26. Robin W. Boadway & Frank R. Flatters, 1982. "Efficiency and Equalization Payments in a Federal System of Government: A Synthesis and Extension of Recent Results," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 15(4), pages 613-633, November.
    27. Wellisch,Dietmar, 2000. "Theory of Public Finance in a Federal State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521630351.
    28. Marko Köthenbürger, 2002. "Tax Competition and Fiscal Equalization," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(4), pages 391-408, August.
    29. Chirinko, Robert S. & Fazzari, Steven M. & Meyer, Andrew P., 1999. "How responsive is business capital formation to its user cost?: An exploration with micro data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 53-80, October.
    30. Caplan, Arthur J. & Silva, Emilson C. D., 1999. "Federal Acid Rain Games," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 25-52, July.
    31. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 2000. "Tax evasion, fiscal competition and economic integration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1633-1657, October.
    32. Mitsui, Kiyoshi & Sato, Motohiro, 2001. "Ex ante free mobility, ex post immobility, and time consistency in a federal system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 445-460, December.
    33. Michael J. Keen & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2002. "Does Federalism Lead to Excessively High Taxes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 363-370, March.
    34. Caplan, Arthur J. & Cornes, Richard C. & Silva, Emilson C. D., 2000. "Pure public goods and income redistribution in a federation with decentralized leadership and imperfect labor mobility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 265-284, August.
    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. Akai, Nobuo & Sato, Motohiro, 2008. "Too big or too small? A synthetic view of the commitment problem of interregional transfers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 551-559, November.
    2. Kothenburger, Marko, 2007. "Ex-post redistribution in a federation: Implications for corrective policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 481-496, April.
    3. Marie-Laure Breuillé & Thierry Madiès & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2007. "Fiscal federalism and soft budget constraint: does the nature of public spending matter?," EconomiX Working Papers 2007-16, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    4. Zarko Y. Kalamov, 2012. "Prudent Fiscal Policy in the Presence of Bailout Expectations," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 68(4), pages 365-382, December.
    5. Shun-ichiro Bessho & Kimiko Terai, 2011. "Competition for private capital and central grants: the case of Japanese industrial parks," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 135-154, June.
    6. Robin Boadway & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2005. "A Theory of Vertical Fiscal Imbalance," Working Papers 2006-04, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    7. Thomas Aronsson Aronsson & Thomas Jonsson & Tomas Sjögren, 2006. "Environmental Policy and Optimal Taxation in a Decentralized Economic Federation," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 62(3), pages 437-454, September.
    8. Arthur Caplan & Emilson Silva, 2011. "Impure public goods, matching grant rates and income redistribution in a federation with decentralized leadership and imperfect labor mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(3), pages 322-336, June.
    9. Yongzheng Liu, 2014. "Does competition for capital discipline governments? The role of fiscal equalization," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(3), pages 345-374, June.
    10. Nobuo Akai & Motohiro Sato, 2005. "leadership meets soft budget," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-391, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    11. Breuillé, Marie-Laure & Madiès, Thierry & Taugourdeau, Emmanuelle, 2010. "Gross versus net equalization scheme in a federation with decentralized leadership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 205-214, September.
    12. Koethenbuerger, Marko, 2008. "Federal tax-transfer policy and intergovernmental pre-commitment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 16-31, January.
    13. Nobuo Akai & Takahiro Watanabe, 2021. "Elections accelerate inefficiencies in local public good provision with decentralized leadership," OSIPP Discussion Paper 21E004, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    14. Aronsson, Thomas & Persson, Lars, 2012. "Decentralized fiscal federalism revisited: Optimal income taxation and public goods under horizontal leadership," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 223-226.
    15. Nobuo Akai & Takahiro Watanabe, 2023. "Electoral outcomes and local public goods provision with ex post interregional transfer," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(6), pages 1633-1655, December.
    16. Stephanie Armbruster & Beat Hintermann, 2020. "Decentralization with porous borders: public production in a federation with tax competition and spillovers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 606-642, June.
    17. Aronsson, Thomas, 2010. "Optimal income taxation and decentralized fiscal federalism," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 187-195, July.
    18. Breuillé, Marie-Laure & Vigneault, Marianne, 2010. "Overlapping soft budget constraints," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 259-269, May.

    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. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2017. "The impressive contribution of Canadian economists to fiscal federalism theory and policy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1348-1380, December.
    2. Koethenbuerger, Marko, 2008. "Federal tax-transfer policy and intergovernmental pre-commitment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 16-31, January.
    3. Sam Bucovetsky & Michael Smart, 2006. "The Efficiency Consequences of Local Revenue Equalization: Tax Competition and Tax Distortions," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(1), pages 119-144, January.
    4. Marko Köthenbürger, 2002. "Tax Competition and Fiscal Equalization," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(4), pages 391-408, August.
    5. Stephanie Armbruster & Beat Hintermann, 2020. "Decentralization with porous borders: public production in a federation with tax competition and spillovers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 606-642, June.
    6. Sotiris Karkalakos & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2007. "A spatial analysis of provincial corporate income tax responses: evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 782-811, August.
    7. Thierry Madiès & Sonia Paty & Yvon Rocaboy, 2005. "Externalités fiscales horizontales et verticales. Où en est la théorie du fédéralisme financier ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 115(1), pages 17-63.
    8. Boadway, Robin & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2012. "Reassessment of the Tiebout model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1063-1078.
    9. Leonzio Rizzo, 2006. "Le inefficienze della competizione fiscale: una rassegna dei principali modelli teorici," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 89-120.
    10. Robin Boadway, 2001. "Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations: The Facilitator of Fiscal Decentralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 93-121, June.
    11. Michael Keen & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2003. "Leviathan and Capital Tax Competition in Federations," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 177-199, April.
    12. Bev Dahlby & Kevin Milligan, 2017. "From theory to practice: Canadian economists’ contributions to public finance," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1324-1347, December.
    13. Boadway, Robin & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2010. "Mobility and Fiscal Imbalance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(4), pages 1023-1053, December.
    14. Crivelli, Ernesto & Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2007. "Horizontal and Vertical Tax Externalities in a Multicountry World," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 8/2007, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    15. Perez-Sebastian, Fidel & Raveh, Ohad, 2018. "What drives vertical fiscal interactions? Evidence from the 1980 Crude Oil Windfall Act," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 251-268.
    16. Mutsumi Matsumoto & Hikaru Ogawa, 2022. "Tax Competition and Efficient Fiscal Transfers under Capital and Labor Income Taxes," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1196, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    17. Robin Boadway & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2005. "A Theory of Vertical Fiscal Imbalance," Working Papers 2006-04, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    18. Brulhart, Marius & Jametti, Mario, 2006. "Vertical versus horizontal tax externalities: An empirical test," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2027-2062, November.
    19. Florence TOUYA, 2016. "EU tax competition and tax avoidance: A multiprincipal perspective," Working Papers 2015-2016_11, CATT - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, revised Aug 2016.
    20. Tomas Sjögren, 2019. "Labor income taxes in an economic federation with proportional membership fees," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(5), pages 1137-1165, October.

    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:eee:juecon:v:55:y:2004:i:3:p:498-513. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    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.