IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgd/p0075.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxation and Democracy in the EU

Author

Listed:
  • Ganghof, Steffen
  • Genschel, Philipp

Abstract

Is corporate tax competition a threat to democracy in the EU? The answer depends crucially on a positive analysis of the effects of tax competition on national policy autonomy. Most analyses focus on direct effects on corporate tax rates and revenues. We contend that this focus is too narrow. It overlooks the fact that corporate tax competition also has important indirect effects on the progressivity and revenue-raising potential of personal income taxation. We elaborate on these indirect effects theoretically and empirically, and explore the implications for the normative debate on the EU?s democratic deficit. Our findings show that European integration can constrain national redistribution in a major way: the democratic deficit is real. Greater political contestation over the EU's policy agenda is desirable in order to mitigate this deficit.

Suggested Citation

  • Ganghof, Steffen & Genschel, Philipp, 2007. "Taxation and Democracy in the EU," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:p0075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19939/1/dp07-2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:44:y:2006:i::p:533-562 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Michael P. Devereux & Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "The Corporate Income Tax: international trends and options for fundamental reform," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 264, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    3. Ruud Mooij, 2004. "A minimum corporate tax rate in the EU combines the best of two worlds," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 39(4), pages 180-182, July.
    4. Baldwin, Richard E. & Krugman, Paul, 2004. "Agglomeration, integration and tax harmonisation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-23, February.
    5. Kenneth Stewart & Michael Webb, 2006. "International competition in corporate taxation: evidence from the OECD time series [‘Agglomeration, integration and tax harmonization’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 21(45), pages 154-201.
    6. Jack Mintz, 1995. "Corporation tax: a survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 23-68, November.
    7. Joel Slemrod & Jon Bakija, 2008. "Taxing Ourselves, 4th Edition: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262693631, April.
    8. World Bank, 2003. "World Development Indicators 2003," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13920.
    9. Duane Swank, 1998. "Funding the Welfare State: Globalization and the Taxation of Business in Advanced Market Economies," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 46(4), pages 671-692, September.
    10. Andrew Moravcsik, 2002. "Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 603-624, November.
    11. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael, 1993. "Jeux Sans Frontieres: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 877-892, September.
    12. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2000. "The viability of advanced welfare states in the international economy. Vulnerabilities and options," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 399-425, July.
    13. Massimo Bordignon & Silvia Giannini & Paolo Panteghini, 2001. "Reforming Business Taxation: Lessons from Italy?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, March.
    14. Andreas Follesdal & Simon Hix, 2006. "Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 533-562, September.
    15. Tanzi, Vito & Zee, Howell H., 2000. "Tax Policy for Emerging Markets: Developing Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(2), pages 299-322, June.
    16. Alexander Klemm, 2004. "A minimum rate without a common base?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 39(4), pages 186-189, July.
    17. Clemens Fuest & Alfons J. Weichenrieder & Alfons Weichenrieder, 2002. "Tax Competition and Profit Shifting: On the Relationship between Personal and Corporate Tax Rates," CESifo Working Paper Series 781, CESifo.
    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. Szarowska, Irena, 2009. "Tax burden and competition in the European Union – Does it change?," MPRA Paper 19934, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Streeck, Wolfgang, 2007. "Endgame? The Fiscal Crisis of the German State," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

    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. Ganghof, Steffen, 2006. "The politics of tax structure," MPIfG Working Paper 06/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2006. "Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1793, CESifo.
    5. Haryo KUNCORO, 2019. "Tax Counterbalancing In Developing Countries The Case Of Indonesia," REVISTA ADMINISTRATIE SI MANAGEMENT PUBLIC, Faculty of Administration and Public Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 2019(32), pages 77-92, June.
    6. Philipp Genschel & Hanna Lierse & Laura Seelkopf, 2016. "Dictators don't compete: autocracy, democracy, and tax competition," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 290-315, April.
    7. Haufler, Andreas, 2006. "Die Besteuerung multinationaler Unternehmen," Discussion Papers in Economics 1153, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    8. Leanora Alecia Brown & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2015. "International Debt Forgiveness: Who Gets Picked and Its Effect On The Tax Effort Of Developing Countries," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1504, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    9. Richard Hyman & Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, 2020. "(How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 26(3), pages 253-272, August.
    10. Zodrow, George R, 2003. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(6), pages 651-671, November.
    11. John E. Anderson, 2014. "Informal Payments to the Tax Collector in Transition Countries," Ekonomi-tek - International Economics Journal, Turkish Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-26, May.
    12. Kempf, Hubert & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2010. "Endogenizing leadership in tax competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 768-776, October.
    13. Godin, M. & Hindriks, J., 2015. "A Review of Critical Issues on Tax Design and Tax Administration in a Global Economy and Developing Countries," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015028, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    14. Nancy Birdsall & Liliana Rojas-Suarez (ed.), 2004. "Financing Development: The Power of Regionalism," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 359, April.
    15. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    16. Petia Kostadinova, 2015. "Improving the Transparency and Accountability of EU Institutions: The Impact of the Office of the European Ombudsman," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 1077-1093, September.
    17. Milan Sedmihradsky & Stanislav Klazar, 2002. "Tax Competition for FDI in Central-European Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 647, CESifo.
    18. Keita, Kady & Rabaud, Isabelle & Turcu, Camelia, 2023. "Fiscal outcomes, current account imbalances, and institutions in Europe: Exploring nonlinearities," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 121-134.
    19. Chen, Yang & Regis, Paulo José, 2014. "Strategic interactions in corporate tax between Chinese local governments," RIEI Working Papers 2014-01, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Research Institute for Economic Integration, revised 27 Oct 2015.
    20. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2014. "No exit from the euro-rescuing trap?," MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

    More about this item

    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:zbw:mpifgd:p0075. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.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.