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Trade integration and corporate income tax differentials

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  • Nelly Exbrayat
  • Benny Geys

Abstract

Building on recent contributions to the New Economic Geography literature, this paper analyses the relation between asymmetric market size, trade integration, and corporate income tax differentials across countries. First, relying on Ottaviano and Van Ypersele’s (J. Int. Econ. 67:25–46, 2005 ) foot-loose capital model of tax competition, we illustrate that trade integration reduces the importance of relative market size for differences in the extent of corporate taxation between countries. Then, using a dataset of 26 OECD countries over the period 1982–2004, we provide supportive evidence of these theoretical predictions, i.e., market size differences are strongly positively correlated with corporate income tax differences across countries, but crucially, trade integration weakens this link. These findings are obtained controlling for the potential endogeneity of trade integration and are robust to alternative specifications. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Nelly Exbrayat & Benny Geys, 2014. "Trade integration and corporate income tax differentials," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 298-323, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:21:y:2014:i:2:p:298-323
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-013-9270-3
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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax competition; Trade integration; New Economic Geography; Tax differentials; H2; H3; C23; F12;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation

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