IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/kondp2/330.html

On the optimal tax policy mix when consumers and firms are imperfectly mobile

Author

Listed:
  • Genser, Bernd
  • Haufler, Andreas

Abstract

An optimal taxation approach is employed to discuss the interaction between factor and commodity taxes for a small open economy when both profit-earning firms and domestic consumers are imperfectly mobile internationally. In this framework, we demonstrate two main results: first, a destination-based commodity tax dominates an origin-based VAT from an efficiency perspective since the first is an independent instrument in the presence of non-wage income, whereas the latter can be duplicated by an appropriate combination of wage and (cash-flow) profit taxation. Second, with mobility costs for firms the optimal profit tax is positive even if the location of firms imposes no social costs on the small country. Simulation results show how the optimal mix of wage, profit and consumption taxes depends on key model parameters.

Suggested Citation

  • Genser, Bernd & Haufler, Andreas, 1997. "On the optimal tax policy mix when consumers and firms are imperfectly mobile," Discussion Papers, Series II 330, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kondp2:330
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/101675/1/72667222X.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Bovenberg, 1994. "Destination- and origin-based taxation under international capital mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 1(3), pages 247-273, October.
    2. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 1990. "Tax harmonization and tax competition in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(2-3), pages 489-504, May.
    3. Genser, Bernd, 1994. "A generalized equivalence property of mixed international VAT regimes," Discussion Papers, Series II 241, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    4. N/A, 1985. "General Policy," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 41(1), pages 74-79, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Andreas Haufler, 1996. "Optimal factor and commodity taxation in a small open economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(4), pages 523-527, October.
    7. Myles,Gareth D., 1995. "Public Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521497695.
    8. Hagen, K.P. & Osmundsen, P. & Schjelderup, G., 1995. "Internationally Mobile Firms and Tax Policy," Papers 8/95, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration-.
    9. Ballard, Charles L. & Fullerton, Don & Shoven, John B. & Whalley, John, 2009. "A General Equilibrium Model for Tax Policy Evaluation," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226036335, August.
    10. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 1994. "How Much Europe? Subsidiarity, Centralization and Fiscal Competition," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 41(1), pages 85-107, February.
    11. repec:bla:scandj:v:98:y:1996:i:2:p:253-62 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. N/A, 1985. "General Policy," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 41(1), pages 112-117, January.
    13. Genser, Bernd & Haufler, Andreas, 1996. "Tax policy and the location decision of firms," Discussion Papers, Series II 306, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    14. Ben Lockwood & David de Meza & Gareth Myles, 1995. "On the European Union VAT proposals: the superiority of origin over destination taxation," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, February.
    15. Bernd Genser & Andreas Haufler & Peter Birch Soerensen, "undated". "Indirect Taxation in an Integrated Europe. Is there a Way of Avoiding Trade Distortions Without Sacrificing National Tax Autonomy?," EPRU Working Paper Series 93-02, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    16. Razin, Assaf & Sadka, Efraim, 1991. "International tax competition and gains from tax harmonization," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 69-76, September.
    17. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael, 1993. "Jeux Sans Frontieres: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 877-892, 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. Wolfgang Eggert & Bernd Genser, 2001. "Is Tax Harmonization Useful?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 511-527, August.
    2. Wolfram Richter, 2000. "An Efficiency Analysis of Consumption and Production Taxation with an Application to Value-Added Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(1), pages 23-41, February.
    3. Wolfgang Eggert & Laszlo Goerke, "undated". "Fiscal Policy, Economic Integration and Unemployment," EPRU Working Paper Series 02-05, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.

    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. Bernd Genser & Andreas Haufler, 1996. "Tax competition, tax coordination and tax harmonization: The effects of EMU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 59-89, February.
    2. Zodrow, George R, 2003. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(6), pages 651-671, November.
    3. Genser, Bernd & Haufler, Andreas, 1996. "Tax policy and the location decision of firms," Discussion Papers, Series II 306, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    4. Ayoki, Milton, 2017. "Estimating the Revenue Impacts of Tax Harmonisation," MPRA Paper 83548, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Giampaolo Arachi, 2001. "Efficient Tax Competition with Factor Mobility and Trade: A Note," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(2), pages 171-188, March.
    6. Keuschnigg, Christian & Loretz, Simon & Winner, Hannes, 2014. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union: A Survey," Economics Working Paper Series 1427, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    7. Wolfgang Eggert & Bernd Genser, 2001. "Is Tax Harmonization Useful?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 511-527, August.
    8. Genser, Bernd, 1995. "Auf der Suche nach einer föderativen Finanzverfassung für Europa," Discussion Papers, Series II 290, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    9. Wolfram Richter, 2000. "An Efficiency Analysis of Consumption and Production Taxation with an Application to Value-Added Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(1), pages 23-41, February.
    10. Ferran Sancho, 2015. "Energy Tax Simulation in a Flexible CGE Model of Catalonia," Working Papers 95, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Lahiri, Sajal & Raimondos-Moller, Pascalis, 1998. "Public good provision and the welfare effects of indirect tax harmonisation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 253-267, February.
    12. Robinson, Sherman & Yunez-Naude, Antonio & Hinojosa-Ojeda, Raul & Lewis, Jeffrey D. & Devarajan, Shantayanan, 1999. "From stylized to applied models:: Building multisector CGE models for policy analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 5-38.
    13. Braid, Ralph M., 2005. "Tax competition, tax exporting and higher-government choice of tax instruments for local governments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1789-1821, September.
    14. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 2000. "Tax evasion, fiscal competition and economic integration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1633-1657, October.
    15. World Bank, 2001. "Mexico Energy Environment Review," World Bank Publications - Reports 20297, The World Bank Group.
    16. Peichl, Andreas, 2008. "The benefits of linking CGE and Microsimulation Models - Evidence from a Flat Tax analysis," FiFo Discussion Papers - Finanzwissenschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 08-6, University of Cologne, FiFo Institute for Public Economics.
    17. Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2010. "Anticipated tax reforms and temporary tax cuts: A general equilibrium analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2141-2158, October.
    18. Saadia Refaqat, 2005. "Redistributive Impact of GST Tax Reform: Pakistan, 1990-2001," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 841-862.
    19. Fehr, Hans & Wiegard, Wolfgang, 1995. "A computable general equilibrium model for the examination of worldwide agricultural liberalization policies: Model structure and preliminary results," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 50, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    20. Inge Mayeres, 1999. "The Distributional Impacts of Policies for the Control of Transport Externalities.An Applied General Equilibrium Model," Working Papers 1999.8, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General

    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:zbw:kondp2:330. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwkonde.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.