[文献18]：欧盟区域政策和税收竞争

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EU regional policy and tax competition

Johannes Becker,Clemens Fuest Ã

Centre for Business Taxation,Sa?

¨d Business School,University of Oxford,Park End Street,Oxford OX1HP,UK a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 18March 2009

Accepted 2June 2009

Available online 12June 2009

JEL classi?cation:

H54

H25

F23

Keywords:

European Union

Infrastructure

Regional policy

Tax competition a b s t r a c t The European Union (EU)provides coordination and ?nancing of trans-European transport infrastructures,i.e.roads and railways,which link the EU member states and reduce the cost of transport and mobility.This raises the question of whether EU involvement in this area is justi?ed by inef?ciencies of national infrastructure policies.Moreover,an often expressed concern is that policies enhancing mobility may boost tax competition.We analyze these questions using a model where countries compete for the location of pro?table ?rms.We show that a coordination of investment in transport cost reducing infrastructures within union countries enhances welfare and mitigates tax competition.In contrast,with regard to union-periphery infrastructure,the union has an interest in a coordinated reduction of investment expenditures.Here,the effects on tax competition are ambiguous.Our results provide a rationale for EU-level regional policy that supports the development of intra-union infrastructure.&2009Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.

1.Introduction

The European Union (EU)invests substantial resources in transport infrastructures,i.e.in roads and railways which link the EU member countries to each other.The intended effect is to reduce mobility costs of workers and transport costs for goods and factors of production.This reduction of mobility costs is in line with the objective of fostering economic integration in the common market.However,from an economic perspective,these policies also raise various concerns.Firstly,the question arises whether EU involvement is necessary,given that member states themselves also have an interest in improving their infrastructure.Secondly,increasing mobility across borders has implications for other policy areas as well,in particular tax policy.As some member states are concerned about tax competition,the question of how EU infrastructure policies affect tax competition may be of crucial importance.1A widespread view is that increased international mobility leads to more intensive tax competition.

In this paper,we analyze the interaction between regional policies,i.e.public investment in regional infrastructure,and tax competition.We develop a model of open economies competing for foreign direct investment through tax and infrastructure policies.Infrastructure investment leads to the reduction of transport costs of goods across borders.We assume that some countries form a union and are able to coordinate their infrastructure policies but not their tax policies.This re?ects the current situation within the European Union,where large infrastructure policies are (co-)?nanced by the supranational EU-level,while business taxes remain uncoordinated.We ask whether national infrastructure policies are Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

journal homepage:http://doc.guandang.net/locate/eer

European Economic Review

0014-2921/$-see front matter &2009Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2009.06.002ÃCorresponding author.Tel.:+441865614846.

E-mail addresses:johannes.becker2@sbs.ox.ac.uk (J.Becker),clemens.fuest@sbs.ox.ac.uk (C.Fuest).

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For instance,on a visit in Poland after its accession to the EU,on May 26th 2004,the German chancellor Gerhard Schro

¨der argued,with reference to EU regional policies:‘‘It is certainly unreasonable that we ?nance an unbridled tax competition among each other via the EU budget’’,cited after Jan Stoyaspal:Want Lower Taxes?Go East ,TIME Magazine of 11th July 2004.European Economic Review 54(2010)150–161

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J.Becker,C.Fuest/European Economic Review54(2010)150–161151 ef?cient for the union as a whole and how coordination of infrastructure policies affects tax competition,given that the member states retain autonomy in corporate taxation.

Our results show that national governments will invest in infrastructure in order to attract?rms and to reduce import prices faced by domestic consumers.However,uncoordinated national infrastructure policies do not lead to ef?cient outcomes for the union as a whole.There is a potential for welfare enhancing coordination of infrastructure policies.These welfare gains arise not only because national infrastructure investment gives rise to spillovers,but also because more infrastructure investment may mitigate tax competition.This is surprising because policies which enhance mobility are usually considered as intensifying tax competition.In our model,this is not the case because more infrastructure reduces transport costs and thus reduces the difference between the prices of imported compared to domestically produced goods faced by consumers.Attracting?rms to make them produce close to the consumers becomes less important,so that governments are less willing to cut taxes.We also consider investment in infrastructure which reduces the transport costs to non-union countries.In this case,uncoordinated expenditures are too high from the perspective of the union,and the effect of infrastructure spending on tax competition within the union is ambiguous.

In the empirical literature on international taxation,the idea that decreasing mobility costs intensi?es tax competition is taken for granted.2Tax competition is predicted to be strongest between neighboring countries.Indeed,proximity is a strong determinant for the location of investment by multinational investors, …… 此处隐藏：47335字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……