IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ays/ispwps/paper1229.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: the Efficiency Effect of Taxes, Transfers and Fiscal Illusion

Author

Listed:
  • Julio López-Laborda

    (Department of Public Economics, University of Zaragoza)

  • Antoni Zabalza

    (Department of Economic Analysis, University of Valencia)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency cost of transfers. To this end, we develop a model of individual demand decisions about the provision of a regional public good that encompasses a continuum of tax/transfers scenarios to finance regional public expenditure. We assume that individuals have identical quasi-linear preferences defined over private consumption and the regional public good, that endowment income varies between individuals and regions and that regions have different predetermined sizes. We show that, despite its simplicity, this model is capable of discriminating the efficiency properties of the different scenarios considered, and that the substitution of transfers for own regional taxes always raises the provision of the regional public good. Our model yields the so called “flypaper effect” with no need to appeal to the existence of “fiscal illusion” by the part of the individual. We nevertheless find that “fiscal illusion” increases the elasticity of public good provision with respect to transfers, and we suggest two potentially refutable hypotheses to identify the existence of this phenomenon.

Suggested Citation

  • Julio López-Laborda & Antoni Zabalza, 2012. "Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: the Efficiency Effect of Taxes, Transfers and Fiscal Illusion," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1229, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1229
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp1229.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Cristian Sepulveda, 2012. "Toward a More General Theory of Revenue Assignments," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1231, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    2. Robin Boadway & Anwar Shah, 2007. "Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers : Principles and Practice," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7171.
    3. Roy Bahl & Musharraf Cyan, 2011. "Tax Assignment: Does the Practice Match the Theory?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(2), pages 264-280, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Antoni Zabalza & Julio López-Laborda, 2011. "The new Spanish system of intergovernmental transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(6), pages 750-786, December.
    6. Mr. Ehtisham Ahmad & Mr. Giorgio Brosio & Mr. Vito Tanzi, 2008. "Local Service Provision in Selected OECD Countries: Do Decentralized Operations Work Better?," IMF Working Papers 2008/067, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Bev Dahlby, 2008. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds: Theory and Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262042509, April.
    8. Gramlich, Edward M, 1969. "State and Local Governments and Their Budget Constraint," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(2), pages 163-182, June.
    9. Bird, Richard M., 1993. "Threading the Fiscal Labyrinth: Some Issues in Fiscal Decentralization," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 46(2), pages 207-27, June.
    10. Fisher, Ronald C., 1982. "Income and grant effects on local expenditure: The flypaper effect and other difficulties," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 324-345, November.
    11. Ehtisham Ahmad & Giorgio Brosio, 2009. "Does Decentralization Enhance Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction?," Chapters, in: Ehtisham Ahmad & Giorgio Brosio (ed.), Does Decentralization Enhance Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction?, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    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. Salvador Barrios & Diego Martínez-López, 2017. "Fiscal equalization schemes and subcentral government borrowing," Chapters, in: Naoyuki Yoshino & Peter J. Morgan (ed.), Central and Local Government Relations in Asia, chapter 4, pages 130-160, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Zhengyuan Wu & Qifeng Gu & Jianqiu Zeng, 2023. "Research on the Mechanism of Transfer Payment Policy on Resource Dependence of Resource-Depleted Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-28, June.

    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. Manuel E. Lago & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2024. "On the effects of intergovernmental grants: a survey," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(3), pages 856-908, June.
    2. Bev Dahlby & Kevin Milligan, 2017. "From theory to practice: Canadian economists’ contributions to public finance," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1324-1347, December.
    3. Carlos A. Vegh y Guillermo Vuletin, 2016. "Unsticking the flypaper effect using distortionary taxation," Económica, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, vol. 62, pages 185-237, January-D.
    4. Boadway, Robin & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2010. "Mobility and Fiscal Imbalance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(4), pages 1023-1053, December.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. repec:npf:wpaper:18 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Rangarajan, C. & Srivastava, D.K., 2004. "Fiscal transfer in Canada: Drawing comparisons and lessons," Working Papers 04/18, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    9. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Cristian Sepulveda, 2020. "A Theoretical Rationale for the Fiscal-Gap Model of Equalization Transfers," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 76(1), pages 1-28.
    10. Bev Dahlby, 2011. "The marginal cost of public funds and the flypaper effect," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(3), pages 304-321, June.
    11. Manuel E. Lago & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2022. "On the effects of intergovernmental grants: a survey," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 2204, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    12. Lkhagvadorj, Ariunaa, 2010. "Fiscal Federalism and Decentralization in Mongolia," MPRA Paper 28758, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2010.
    13. Willem Sas, 2015. "Commuting in a federation: Horizontal and vertical tax externalities revisited," ERSA conference papers ersa15p690, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Antti Saastamoinen & Mika Kortelainen, 2020. "When Does Money Stick in Education? Evidence from A Kinked Grant Rule," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(4), pages 708-735, Fall.
    15. repec:ind:nipfwp:18 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. William Hoyt, 2005. "The Assignment and Division of the Tax Base in a System of Hierarchical Governments," Working Papers 2005-07, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    17. Juan Luis Gómez Reino & Ana Herrero Alcalde, 2011. "Political Determinants of Regional Financing: The Case of Spain," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(5), pages 802-820, October.
    18. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2017. "The impressive contribution of Canadian economists to fiscal federalism theory and policy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1348-1380, December.
    19. Yuya Kikuchi & Toshiki Tamai, 2019. "Tax competition, unemployment, and intergovernmental transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(4), pages 899-918, August.
    20. Cristina García Nicolás & José María Cantos Cantos, 2018. "Regional Community Policy: Does Aid Received from the EU Displace Funding by Member States?," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 224(1), pages 87-112, March.
    21. Becerra, Ligia Melo, 2004. "Intergovernmental fiscal relations : the Colombian case," Economics PhD Theses 0304, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    22. Willem Sas, 2017. "Can fiscal equalisation mitigate tax competition? Ad valorem and residence-based taxation in a federation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(5), pages 817-853, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional finance; taxes; transfers; fiscal illusion; flypaper effect;
    All these keywords.

    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:ays:ispwps:paper1229. 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: Paul Benson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ispgsus.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.