Are Moderate Leviathans Harmful to Tax Coordination?

This study investigates how the sustainability of partial tax coordination among a subset of countries (i.e., a tax union) is affected when the governments' objective function is moderate Leviathan in that policymakers are neither entirely benevolent nor fully self-interested. We show that partial tax coordination is more likely to prevail either when moderate-Leviathan-type governments become more revenue-maximizing Leviathans or when more wasteful government expenditure is engaged in. Nevertheless, the well-being of the residents in the member countries of the tax union unambiguously deteriorates, while that in nonmember countries is ambiguous.