IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/795.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Partial Tax Harmonization Desirable?

Author

Listed:
  • Conconi, Paola

    (Université Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES), University of Warwick (CSGR) and CEPR)

  • Perroni, Carlo

    (University of Warwick and CESifo)

  • Riezman, Raymond

    (University of Iowa and CESifo)

Abstract

We consider a setting in which capital taxation is characterized by two distortions working in opposite directions. On one hand, governments engage in tax competition and are tempted to lower capital tax rates. On the other hand, they are unable to commit to future policies and, once capital has been installed, have incentives to increase taxes. In this setting, there exists a tax that optimally trades off the two distortions. We compare three possible tax harmonization scenarios: no tax harmonization (all countries set taxes unilaterally), global tax harmonization (all countries coordinate their capital taxes), and partial tax harmonization (only a subset of all countries coordinate capital taxes). We show that, if capital is sufficiently mobile, partial tax harmonization benefits all countries compared to both global and no harmonization.

Suggested Citation

  • Conconi, Paola & Perroni, Carlo & Riezman, Raymond, 2007. "Is Partial Tax Harmonization Desirable?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 795, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2008/twerp_795.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paola Conconi & Carlo Perroni, 2002. "Issue Linkage and Issue Tie-in in International Negotiations," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/5839, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Devereux, Michael P. & Lockwood, Ben & Redoano, Michela, 2008. "Do countries compete over corporate tax rates?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1210-1235, June.
    3. Conconi, Paola & Perroni, Carlo, 2009. "Do credible domestic institutions promote credible international agreements?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 160-170, September.
    4. Edwards, Jeremy & Keen, Michael, 1996. "Tax competition and Leviathan," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 113-134, January.
    5. Slemrod, Joel & Hansen, Carl & Procter, Roger, 1997. "The seesaw principle in international tax policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 163-176, August.
    6. Bacchetta, Philippe & Espinosa, Maria Paz, 1995. "Information sharing and tax competition among governments," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 103-121, August.
    7. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Pareto efficient and optimal taxation and the new new welfare economics," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 991-1042, Elsevier.
    8. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Edward C. Prescott, 1988. "Time consistency and policy," Staff Report 115, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    9. Torsten Persson, 1992. "Politics and economic policy," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 62, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Benhabib, Jess & Rustichini, Aldo, 1997. "Optimal Taxes without Commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 231-259, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Paul R. Krugman, 1991. "The move toward free trade zones," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 7-58.
    13. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, September.
    14. Rogers, Carol Ann, 1987. "Expenditure taxes, income taxes, and time-inconsistency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 215-230, March.
    15. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 1992. "The Politics of 1992: Fiscal Policy and European Integration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(4), pages 689-701.
    16. Conconi, Paola & Perroni, Carlo, 2002. "Issue linkage and issue tie-in in multilateral negotiations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 423-447, August.
    17. Konrad, Kai A. & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 1999. "Fortress Building in Global Tax Competition," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 156-167, July.
    18. Wilson, John Douglas & Wildasin, David E., 2004. "Capital tax competition: bane or boon," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(6), pages 1065-1091, June.
    19. Patrick J. Kehoe, 1989. "Policy Cooperation Among Benevolent Governments May Be Undesirable," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(2), pages 289-296.
    20. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1990. "Supply-Side Economics: An Analytical Review," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 293-316, April.
    21. Fischer, Stanley, 1980. "Dynamic inconsistency, cooperation and the benevolent dissembling government," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 93-107, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Krishanu Karmakar & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2014. "Fiscal Competition versus Fiscal Harmonization: A Review of the Arguments," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1431, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    2. Keisuke Kawachi & Hikaru Ogawa & Taiki Susa, 2019. "Endogenizing government’s objectives in tax competition with capital ownership," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(3), pages 571-594, June.
    3. Edwards, Jeremy & Keen, Michael, 1996. "Tax competition and Leviathan," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 113-134, January.
    4. Chu, Angus C. & Yang, C.C., 2012. "Fiscal centralization versus decentralization: Growth and welfare effects of spillovers, Leviathan taxation, and capital mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 177-188.
    5. Gaëtan Nicodème, 2006. "Corporate tax competition and coordination in the European Union: What do we know? Where do we stand?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 250, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    6. Michael Keen & Kai A. Konrad, 2012. "International Tax Competition and Coordination," Working Papers international_tax_competi, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    7. Lai, Yu-Bong, 2010. "The political economy of capital market integration and tax competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 475-487, December.
    8. Lisa Grazzini & Tanguy Van Ypersele, 2003. "Fiscal Coordination and Political Competition," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 305-325, April.
    9. Franto Ricka, 2012. "The right-wing power of small countries," Working Papers 153, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Office of the Chief Economist.
    10. Satoshi Kasamatsu & Daiki Kishishita, 2021. "Tax competition and political agency problems," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 1782-1810, November.
    11. Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI, 2016. "Implementing Tax Coordination and Harmonization through Voluntary Commitment," Working Papers P181, FERDI.
    12. Wang, Wenming & Ogawa, Hikaru, 2018. "Objectives of governments in tax competition: Role of capital supply elasticity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 225-231.
    13. Zeynep Burcu BULUT-ÇEVİK, 2020. "Fiscal Decentralization with a Redistribution Rule vs. Fiscal Centralization," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 28(44).
    14. Hans Pitlik, 2005. "Folgt die Steuerpolitik in der EU der Logik des Steuerwettbewerbs," Diskussionspapiere aus dem Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Hohenheim 256/2005, Department of Economics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
    15. Fuest, Clemens & Huber, Bernd, 2001. "Why is there so little tax coordination? The role of majority voting and international tax evasion," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2-3), pages 299-317, April.
    16. Eckhard Janeba & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2009. "The Welfare Effects of Tax Competition Reconsidered: Politicians and Political Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1143-1161, July.
    17. Sonja Brangewitz & Sarah Brockhoff, 2012. "Stability of Coalitional Equilibria within Repeated Tax Competition," Working Papers CIE 48, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    18. Brangewitz, Sonja & Brockhoff, Sarah, 2014. "Stability of coalitional equilibria within repeated tax competition," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 461, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    19. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax Competition ; Commitment ; Partial Coordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wrk:warwec:795. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.