IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kob/dpaper/237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Richard E. Baldwin

    (Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland)

  • Toshihiro Okubo

    (Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, Japan)

Abstract

This paper studies tax competition in a setting that allows for agglomeration economies and heterogeneous firms. We find that the Nash equilibrium involves the large country charging a higher tax than the small nation, with this rate being too low from a social point of view. Tighter integration of markets leads to an intensification of competition, a drop in Nash tax rates, and a narrowing of the gap. Since large, productive firms are naturally more sensitive to tax difference in our model, large firms are the crux of tax competition in our model. This also means that tax competition has consequences for the average productivity of the big and small nations' industry; by lowering tax rates, the small nation can attract high-productivity firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard E. Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2009. "Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Firms," Discussion Paper Series 237, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    • Handle: RePEc:kob:dpaper:237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/dp237.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Federico Trionfetti, 2001. "Public Procurement, Market Integration, and Income Inequalities," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 29-41, February.
    2. Andreas Haufler & Frank Stähler, 2013. "Tax Competition In A Simple Model With Heterogeneous Firms: How Larger Markets Reduce Profit Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(2), pages 665-692, May.
    3. Ludema, Rodney D. & Wooton, Ian, 2000. "Economic geography and the fiscal effects of regional integration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 331-357, December.
    4. Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2005. "Market size and tax competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 25-46, September.
    5. Burbidge, John & Cuff, Katherine, 2005. "Capital tax competition and returns to scale," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 353-373, July.
    6. Richard E. Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2014. "International Trade, Offshoring and Heterogeneous Firms," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 59-72, February.
    7. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 269-304, June.
    8. Devereux, Michael P. & Lockwood, Ben & Redoano, Michela, 2008. "Do countries compete over corporate tax rates?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1210-1235, June.
    9. Okubo, Toshihiro & Picard, Pierre M. & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2010. "The spatial selection of heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 230-237, November.
    10. Baldwin, Richard E. & Krugman, Paul, 2004. "Agglomeration, integration and tax harmonisation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-23, February.
    11. Forslid, Rikard & Midelfart, Karen Helene, 2005. "Internationalisation, industrial policy and clusters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 197-213, May.
    12. Fredrik Andersson & Rikard Forslid, 2003. "Tax Competition and Economic Geography," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 279-303, April.
    13. Ronald B. Davies & Carsten Eckel, 2010. "Tax Competition for Heterogeneous Firms with Endogenous Entry," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 77-102, 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. Kind, Hans Jarle & Knarvik, Karen Helene Midelfart & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2000. "Competing for capital in a 'lumpy' world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 253-274, November.
    16. Martin, Philippe & Rogers, Carol Ann, 1995. "Industrial location and public infrastructure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 335-351, November.
    17. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2002. "Market Access and Tax Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 3638, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. George R. Zodrow & Peter Mieszkowski, 2019. "Pigou, Tiebout, Property Taxation, and the Underprovision of Local Public Goods," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 17, pages 525-542, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Richard E. Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2006. "Heterogeneous firms, agglomeration and economic geography: spatial selection and sorting," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 323-346, June.
    20. Okubo, Toshihiro, 2009. "Trade liberalisation and agglomeration with firm heterogeneity: Forward and backward linkages," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 530-541, September.
    21. Wilson, John D., 1986. "A theory of interregional tax competition," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 296-315, May.
    22. 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.
    23. Richard Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2009. "Tax Reform, Delocation, and Heterogeneous Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(4), pages 741-764, December.
    24. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 2), pages 269-304, June.
    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. Ivo Bischoff & Stefan Krabel, 2017. "Local taxes and political influence: evidence from locally dominant firms in German municipalities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(2), pages 313-337, April.
    2. Juan Carlos Lopez & Tadashi Morita, 2024. "Public good provision and progressive income taxation in a spatial economy," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(3), pages 979-1003, October.
    3. Langenmayr Dominika, 2015. "Limiting Profit Shifting in a Model with Heterogeneous Firm Productivity," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(4), pages 1657-1677, October.
    4. Hayato Kato & Hirofumi Okoshi, 2022. "Economic Integration And Agglomeration Of Multinational Production With Transfer Pricing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1325-1355, August.
    5. Gianluca Iannucci & Federico Martellozzo & Filippo Randelli, 2022. "Sustainable development of rural areas: a dynamic model in between tourism exploitation and landscape decline," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 991-1016, July.
    6. Drucker, Joshua & Funderburg, Richard & Merriman, David & Weber, Rachel, 2020. "Do local governments use business tax incentives to compensate for high business property taxes?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Liberini, Federica, 2014. "Corporate Taxes and the Growth of the Firm," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1042, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    8. Weiwei Yang & Jiaru Kang & Zhiyuan Ge, 2022. "The Impact of the Upgrading of High-tech Zones on the Total Factor Productivity of Enterprises: Evidence from Guasi-natural Experiments," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(1), pages 1-7.
    9. Kato, Hayato, 2015. "The importance of government commitment in attracting firms: A dynamic analysis of tax competition in an agglomeration economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 57-78.
    10. Jyh-Fa Tsai, 2019. "Tax competition with spillover public goods in a median location model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 831-862, October.
    11. Hayato Kato, 2018. "Lobbying and tax competition in an oligopolistic industry: a reverse home-market effect," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 276-295, July.

    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. Krautheim, Sebastian & Schmidt-Eisenlohr, Tim, 2011. "Heterogeneous firms, 'profit shifting' FDI and international tax competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1-2), pages 122-133, February.
    2. Sandy Fréret & Denis Maguain, 2017. "The effects of agglomeration on tax competition: evidence from a two-regime spatial panel model on French data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(6), pages 1100-1140, December.
    3. Pasquale Commendatore & Ingrid Kubin, 2016. "Source versus residence: A comparison from a new economic geography perspective," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(2), pages 201-222, June.
    4. Andreas Haufler & Frank Stähler, 2013. "Tax Competition In A Simple Model With Heterogeneous Firms: How Larger Markets Reduce Profit Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(2), pages 665-692, May.
    5. Richard Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2009. "Tax Reform, Delocation, and Heterogeneous Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(4), pages 741-764, December.
    6. Brülhart, Marius & Bucovetsky, Sam & Schmidheiny, Kurt, 2015. "Taxes in Cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1123-1196, Elsevier.
    7. Azémar, Céline & Desbordes, Rodolphe & Wooton, Ian, 2020. "Is international tax competition only about taxes? A market-based perspective," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 891-912.
    8. Marius Brülhart & Mario Jametti & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2012. "Do agglomeration economies reduce the sensitivity of firm location to tax differentials?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(563), pages 1069-1093, September.
    9. Hayato Kato & Hirofumi Okoshi, 2022. "Economic Integration And Agglomeration Of Multinational Production With Transfer Pricing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1325-1355, August.
    10. Nelly Exbrayat & Benny Geys, 2016. "Economic Integration, Corporate Tax Incidence and Fiscal Compensation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 1792-1811, November.
    11. Anping Chen & Marlon Boarnet & Mark Partridge & Yongzheng Liu & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2014. "Interjurisdictional Tax Competition In China," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 606-628, September.
    12. Signe Krogstrup, 2002. "What do Theories of Tax Competition Predict for Capital Taxes in EU Countries? A Review of the Tax Competition Literature," IHEID Working Papers 05-2002, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    13. Signe Krogstrup, 2008. "Standard Tax Competition and Increasing Returns," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(4), pages 547-561, August.
    14. Yongzheng Liu, 2016. "Do government preferences matter for tax competition?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(2), pages 343-367, April.
    15. MORITA Tadashi & SAWADA Yukiko & YAMAMOTO Kazuhiro, 2016. "Subsidy Competition, Imperfect Labor Market, and Endogenous Entry of Firms," Discussion papers 16096, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    16. Rainald Borck & Hyun‐Ju Koh & Michael Pflüger, 2012. "Inefficient Lock‐In And Subsidy Competition," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1179-1204, November.
    17. Hannes Winner, 2005. "Has Tax Competition Emerged in OECD Countries? Evidence from Panel Data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(5), pages 667-687, September.
    18. Jofre-Monseny, Jordi & Solé-Ollé, Albert, 2012. "Which communities should be afraid of mobility? The effects of agglomeration economies on the sensitivity of employment location to local taxes," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 257-268.
    19. Karen Crabbé & Karolien De Bruyne, 2013. "Taxes, Agglomeration Rents and Location Decisions of Firms," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(4), pages 421-446, December.
    20. Eva Luthi & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2014. "The effect of agglomeration size on local taxes," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 265-287.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm heterogeneity; Nash equilibrium tax; Stackelberg equilibrium tax; Collusion; Average productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:kob:dpaper:237. 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: Office of Promoting Research Collaboration, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rikobjp.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.