This paper shows how competition among governments for mobile firms can bring about excessive differentiation in levels of taxation and public good provision. Hotelling's Principle of Minimum Differentiation is applied in the context of tax competition and shown to be invalid. Instead, when an equilibrium exists, differentiation of public good provision is maximized. Non-existence of equilibrium, which is possible, is a metaphor for intense tax competition. The paper also shows that, to some extent, perfect tax discrimination presents a solution to the existence problem created by Hotelling tax competition, but that the efficiency problem of Hotelling tax competition is exacerbated.
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 932.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General 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 H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Bond, Eric W & Samuelson, Larry, 1986.
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Amrita Dhillon & Myrna H. Wooders & Ben Zissimos, 2006.
"Tax Competition Reconsidered,"
Working Papers
0602, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University.
[Downloadable!]
Black, Dan A & Hoyt, William H, 1989.
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American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1249-56, December.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff & Nicolas Marceau, 2002.
"Inter-Jurisdictional Competition for Firms,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(3), pages 761-782, August.
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