[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lar/wpaper/2021-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax Competition and Leviathan with decentralized leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Steve BILLON

    (LaRGE Research Center, Université de Strasbourg)

Abstract
The traditional approach of public choice suggests that decentralization in the form of a fiercer competition may play an efficient constraint on the growth of self-interested governments. This paper analyzes the effect of decentralization on Leviathan state governments in the presence of intergovernmental grants provided by a federal layer. Under decentralized leadership, state governments strategically set their tax policy and wasteful consumption of public expenditures by anticipating the reaction of the federal government in terms of grants. The transfer scheme eliminates any incentive to engage in tax competition. However, it also creates an opportunity for state policy-makers to pass the financing of a part of their inefficient expenditures onto other members of the federation. In contrast to the conventional wisdom of public choice that focuses on simultaneous central and local decisions, increased competition in the decentralized leadership equilibrium might reduce citizens' welfare. Decentralization enhances the sharing of wasteful expenditures and the incentives to extract rents from tax revenues. The conditions under which more competition leads to higher wasteful expenditures and welfare worsening are derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve BILLON, 2021. "Tax Competition and Leviathan with decentralized leadership," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2021-07, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lar:wpaper:2021-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ifs.u-strasbg.fr/large/publications/2021/2021-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. G. Gulsun Arikan, 2004. "Fiscal Decentralization: A Remedy for Corruption?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 11(2), pages 175-195, March.
    2. Edwards, Jeremy & Keen, Michael, 1996. "Tax competition and Leviathan," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 113-134, January.
    3. Qian, Yingyi & Roland, Gerard, 1998. "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1143-1162, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Timothy Goodspeed, 2002. "Bailouts in a Federation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(4), pages 409-421, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Hoyt, William H., 1991. "Competitive jurisdictions, congestion, and the Henry George Theorem : When should property be taxed instead of land?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 351-370, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, September.
    10. Sato, Motohiro, 2003. "Tax competition, rent-seeking and fiscal decentralization," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 19-40, February.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Michael Keen, 1998. "Vertical Tax Externalities in the Theory of Fiscal Federalism," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(3), pages 454-485, September.
    14. Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2006. "Does tax competition soften regional budget constraint ?," Post-Print halshs-00094283, HAL.
    15. 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.
    16. Toshihiro Ihori, 2011. "Overlapping tax revenue, soft budget, and rent seeking," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(1), pages 36-55, February.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Breuille, Marie-Laure & Madies, Thierry & Taugourdeau, Emmanuelle, 2006. "Does tax competition soften regional budget constraint?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 230-236, February.
    20. Marie-Laure Breuille & Thierry Madiès & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2010. "Gross versus net equalization scheme in a federation with decentralized leadership," Post-Print hal-02935824, HAL.
    21. Marie-Laure Breuille & Thierry Madiès & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2010. "Gross versus net equalization scheme in a federation with decentralized leadership," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02935824, HAL.
    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. 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.
    2. Boadway, Robin & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2012. "Reassessment of the Tiebout model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1063-1078.
    3. Kothenburger, Marko, 2004. "Tax competition in a fiscal union with decentralized leadership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 498-513, May.
    4. Thierry Madiès & Sonia Paty & Yvon Rocaboy, 2005. "Les stratégies fiscales des collectivités locales. De la théorie à la réalité," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 94(3), pages 283-315.
    5. 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.
    6. Karolina Kaiser & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2013. "The timing of elections in federations: a disciplining device against soft budget constraints?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 197-215, March.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Timothy J. Goodspeed, 2017. "Bailouts and Soft Budget Constraints in Decentralized Government: A Synthesis and Survey of an Alternative View of Intergovernmental Grant Policy," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 221(2), pages 113-134, June.
    10. Emilson Silva, 2015. "Efficient earmarking under decentralized fiscal commitments," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(4), pages 683-701, August.
    11. Keen, Michael J. & Kotsogiannis, Christos, 2004. "Tax competition in federations and the welfare consequences of decentralization," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 397-407, November.
    12. Esteller-Moré, Alejandro & Galmarini, Umberto & Rizzo, Leonzio, 2012. "Vertical tax competition and consumption externalities in a federation with lobbying," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 295-305.
    13. Toshiki Tamai & Gareth Myles, 2022. "Unemployment, tax competition, and tax transfer policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(3), pages 470-503, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Eggert, Wolfgang & Sørensen, Peter Birch, 2008. "The effects of tax competition when politicians create rents to buy political support," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1142-1163, June.
    16. Koethenbuerger, Marko, 2008. "Federal tax-transfer policy and intergovernmental pre-commitment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 16-31, January.
    17. Fredriksson, Per G. & Mamun, Khawaja A., 2008. "Vertical externalities in cigarette taxation: Do tax revenues go up in smoke?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 35-48, July.
    18. 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.
    19. William H. Hoyt, 2017. "The assignment and division of the tax base in a system of hierarchical governments," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(4), pages 678-704, August.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Federalism; Tax Competition; Decentralization; Government waste.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

    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:lar:wpaper:2021-07. 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: Christophe J. Godlewski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lastrfr.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.