IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgt/wpaper/2016-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxing and Subsidizing Foreign Investors

Author

Abstract

Many countries impose taxes on foreign investors while also having in place targeted subsidies and tax incentives that are designed to attract them. This paper shows that such a policy can be optimal from the standpoint of a host country. The government has an incentive to tax inframarginal firms because they are relatively immobile. It also has an incentive to subsidize marginal firms because the economic activity generated by such a subsidy can increase domestic wages in excess of the fiscal cost of the subsidy. These tax and subsidy policies improve host country welfare at the expense of foreigners. This analysis is thus able to provide an explanation for why tax coordination efforts can simultaneously entail reduced taxes and subsidies on foreign firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharma, Rishi, 2016. "Taxing and Subsidizing Foreign Investors," Working Papers 2016-03, Department of Economics, Colgate University, revised 25 May 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2016-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://digitalcollections.colgate.edu/islandora/object/islandora%253A4728
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Janeba, Eckhard & Smart, Michael, 2003. "Is Targeted Tax Competition Less Harmful Than Its Remedies?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(3), pages 259-280, May.
    2. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    3. Dharmapala, Dhammika & Slemrod, Joel & Wilson, John Douglas, 2011. "Tax policy and the missing middle: Optimal tax remittance with firm-level administrative costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1036-1047, October.
    4. Demidova, Svetlana & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2013. "The simple analytics of the Melitz model in a small economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 266-272.
    5. Demidova, Svetlana & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2009. "Trade policy under firm-level heterogeneity in a small economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 100-112, June.
    6. Bauer, Christian & Davies, Ronald B. & Haufler, Andreas, 2014. "Economic integration and the optimal corporate tax structure with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 42-56.
    7. Chor, Davin, 2009. "Subsidies for FDI: Implications from a model with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 113-125, June.
    8. Keen, Michael, 2001. "Preferential Regimes Can Make Tax Competition Less Harmful," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(4), pages 757-762, December.
    9. Alan H. Peters & Peter S. Fisher, 2002. "State Enterprise Zone Programs: Have They Worked?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number sezp, December.
    10. Janeba, Eckhard & Peters, Wolfgang, 1999. "Tax Evasion, Tax Competition and the Gains from Nondiscrimination: The Case of Interest Taxation in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(452), pages 93-101, January.
    11. Timothy J. Bartik & George A. Erickcek, 2012. "Simulating the Effects of Michigan's MEGA Tax Credit Program on Job Creation and Fiscal Benefits," Upjohn Working Papers 12-185, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    12. Timothy J. Bartik, 2001. "Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number tjb2001, December.
    13. Itoh, Motoshige & Kiyono, Kazuharu, 1987. "Welfare-Enhancing Export Subsidies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 115-137, February.
    14. Burbidge, John & Cuff, Katherine & Leach, John, 2006. "Tax competition with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 533-549, February.
    15. Keen, Michael, 2001. "Preferential Regimes Can Make Tax Competition Less Harmful," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 54(n. 4), pages 757-62, December.
    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. Rishi R. Sharma, 2019. "Incentives to tax foreign investors," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 257-281, April.

    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. Sharma, Rishi, 2016. "Taxing and Subsidizing Foreign Investors," Working Papers 2016-03, Department of Economics, Colgate University, revised 13 Sep 2016.
    2. Rishi R. Sharma, 2019. "Incentives to tax foreign investors," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 257-281, April.
    3. Langenmayr, Dominika & Haufler, Andreas & Bauer, Christian J., 2015. "Should tax policy favor high- or low-productivity firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-34.
    4. Haufler, Andreas & Runkel, Marco, 2012. "Firms' financial choices and thin capitalization rules under corporate tax competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1087-1103.
    5. Hernández-Murillo, Rubén, 2019. "Interjurisdictional competition with adverse selection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 85-95.
    6. Lisa Evers & Helen Miller & Christoph Spengel, 2015. "Intellectual property box regimes: effective tax rates and tax policy considerations," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(3), pages 502-530, June.
    7. Hübner, Malte, 2012. "The welfare effects of discriminating between in-state and out-of-state students," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 364-374.
    8. Clemens Fuest & Samina Sultan, 2019. "How Will Brexit Affect Tax Competition and Tax Harmonization? The Role of Discriminatory Taxation," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 72(1), pages 111-138, March.
    9. Gaigné, Carl & Wooton, Ian, 2011. "The gains from preferential tax regimes reconsidered," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 59-66, January.
    10. Bauer, Christian & Davies, Ronald B. & Haufler, Andreas, 2014. "Economic integration and the optimal corporate tax structure with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 42-56.
    11. Marceau, Nicolas & Mongrain, Steeve & Wilson, John D., 2010. "Why do most countries set high tax rates on capital?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 249-259, March.
    12. Andreas Haufler, 2007. "Sollen multinationale Unternehmen weniger Steuern bezahlen?," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 76(2), pages 8-20.
    13. Bucovetsky, Sam & Haufler, Andreas, 2008. "Tax competition when firms choose their organizational form: Should tax loopholes for multinationals be closed," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 188-201, January.
    14. Bucovetsky, Sam & Haufler, Andreas, 2007. "Preferential Tax Regimes With Asymmetric Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(4), pages 789-795, December.
    15. Alexander Haupt & Tim Krieger, 2009. "The role of mobility in tax and subsidy competition," Working Papers CIE 21, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    16. Kaushal Kishore, 2008. "Tax Competition, Imperfect Capital Mobility and the gain from non-preferential agreements," Departmental Working Papers 0804, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    17. Kim, Junghun, 2005. "Tax reform issues in Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 973-992, December.
    18. Haufler, Andreas & Schindler, Dirk, 2023. "Attracting profit shifting or fostering innovation? On patent boxes and R&D subsidies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    19. Pflüger, Michael & Suedekum, Jens, 2013. "Subsidizing firm entry in open economies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 258-271.
    20. Mongrain, Steeve & Wilson, John D., 2018. "Tax competition with heterogeneous capital mobility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-189.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    international taxation; foreign direct investment; firm heterogeneity; tax competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    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:cgt:wpaper:2016-03. 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: Chad Sparber (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/declgus.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.