Should Tax Policy Favor High- or Low-Productivity Firms?
Should Tax Policy Favor High- or Low-Productivity Firms?
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DOI：
10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.10.005
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发表时间：
2012-12
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Dominika Langenmayr;Andreas Haufler;C. Bauer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Dominika Langenmayr;Andreas Haufler;C. Bauer
企业生产率的异质性提出了这样一个问题：政府是否应该采取“择优”策略，对生产率较高的企业给予比生产率较低的企业更多的补贴（或对其征税较少）。我们研究这个问题的背景是，政府可以在具有两种生产力水平的企业共存的寡头垄断行业中设定差异化的有效税率。我们表明，税收差别化的最优结构关键取决于企业利润税的可行水平，而企业利润税的可行水平又取决于国际税收竞争的程度。当税收竞争较弱且最优利润税率较高时，有利于高生产率企业确实是最优政策。然而，当税收竞争激烈且利润税较低时，最优税收政策就会逆转并有利于低生产率的企业。
Heterogeneous firm productivity raises the question of whether governments should pursue ‘pick-the-winner’ strategies by subsidizing highly productive firms more (or taxing them less) than their less productive counterparts. We study this issue in a setting where governments can set differentiated effective tax rates in an oligopolistic industry in which firms with two productivity levels co-exist. We show that the optimal structure of tax differentiation depends critically on the feasible level of the corporate profit tax, which in turn depends on the degree of international tax competition. When tax competition is weak and optimal profit tax rates are high, favoring high-productivity firms is indeed the optimal policy. When tax competition is aggressive and profit taxes are low, however, the optimal tax policy reverses and favors low-productivity firms.