Comportements stratégiques fiscaux des petits pays en Europe

This paper contribtes to the small empirical literature dealing with strategic tax behaviors of small EU countries. We estimate tax reaction functions of national governments competing with each other. Deriving a simple model of tax competition in a Nash and Stackelberg framework, we use panel data and tools from spatial econometrics to test the role of small countries in the tax competition within the enlarged European Union. We find that interactions are stronger among small countries of the EU than between large ones and tax rates set by small countries have influence on those set in large countries. Finally, small countries close to the center of the EU have more influence on the choice of tax policies in other countries than the small peripheral countries.