Research on Local Public Economics : with Focus on Capital Tax Competition

在这个资助项目期间，我写了两篇研究论文：(1)税收竞争的进入；(2)税收竞争下的再分配与区域发展。(1)目的是考察当竞争地区的数量是内生时，税收竞争的后果。Zodrow和Mieszkowski(1986年出版的《城市经济学杂志》)等标准税收竞争模型表明，当固定数量的地区竞争流动税基时，税率和公共支出水平太低。(1)论证的是，这一标准论点是通过内生区域进入来进行的。为了确定竞争商业投资的地区的数量，在提供公共投入的Zodrow-Mieszkowski模型中引入了土地开发的固定成本。在这个框架中，研究表明，从竞争商业投资的活跃地区之间的对称均衡出发，公共投入水平的均匀增加符合…更详细地讲，提高了所有地区的总收入，这意味着拨备水平在均衡中效率较低。本文正在进行综述，拟发表在《国际税收与公共财政》上。在兵库县大学和名古屋大学举办的研讨会以及2007年日本公共财政协会年会(在明治大学)上也报告了这一情况。(2)许多国家和州将区域发展政策用作区域重新分配的手段，即使可以为此目的进行直接转移。在(2)中，从扭曲税收竞争的角度对这一政策实践提供了可能的解释。具体地说，本文考察了在地区收入差距存在的情况下，资本税竞争对转移支付和发展政策的影响。在每个国家，发展政策决定了(不)从事生产活动的富裕(贫穷)地区的数量，而转移支付政策则在富裕地区和贫穷地区之间重新分配收入。在税收竞争下，转移和发展政策的组合效率低下：在均衡税率的条件下，太多的收入花在发展政策上，太少的收入花在转移政策上。对支出构成的分析表明，在为区域再分配分配特定税收收入时，相互竞争的国家过于重视通过发展政策减少贫穷地区的数量，而不是将收入从富裕地区转移到贫穷地区。此外，研究显示，公共开支的整体水平可能会因为过度发展的可能性而过高。在目前的发展政策规范下，标准的供应不足结果并不一定成立。我在立命馆大学、名古屋大学和京都大学举行的研讨会上报告了这篇论文。这篇论文于2008年5月5日发表在《城市经济学杂志》上(doi：10.1016/j.jue.2008.05.002)。从5月9日起，可在爱思唯尔的主页上在线获取。较少

During the term of this subsidized project, I wrote two research papers :(1) Entry in Tax Competition ; (2) Redistribution and Regional Development under Tax Competition.(1) The purpose of (1) is an investigation of the consequence of tax competition when the number of competing regions is endogenous. The standard tax competition models such as Zodrow and Mieszkowski (the 1986, Journal of Urban Economics) have shown that tax rates and public expenditure levels are too low when a fixed number of regions compete for mobile tax bases. What (1) argues is that this standard argument goes through with endogenous region entry. To determine the number of regions that compete for business investment, a fixed cost of land development is introduced into the Zodrow-Mieszkowski model of public input provision. In this framework, it is shown that, starting from a symmetric equilibrium among "active" regions that compete for business investment, a uniform increase in the level of public input provisi … More on raises the aggregate income of all regions, implying that the provision level is inefficiently low in the equilibrium.This paper is under review for publication in "International Tax and Public Finance". It was also reported at seminars held at Hyogo Prefecture University and Nagoya University, and at the annual meeting of the Japanese association of public finance in 2007 (at Meiji University).(2) Regional development policies are used as a means of regional redistribution in many countries and states, even if direct transfers are available for this purpose. In (2), a possible explanation for this policy practice is provided in terms of distorting tax competition. Specifically, the paper considers how capital tax competition affects transfer and development policies in the presence of regional income disparity. In each country, development policies determine the number of rich (poor) regions that (do not) engage in production activities, while transfer policies redistribute income between rich and poor regions. The mix of transfer and development policies is inefficient under tax competition: conditional on the equilibrium tax rate, too much revenue is spent on development policies and too little on transfer policies. This analysis of the expenditure mix implies that when allocating a given tax revenue for regional redistribution, competing countries attach too much importance to reducing the number of poor regions through development policies, rather than transferring income from rich to poor regions. Moreover, it is shown that the overall level of public expenditure may be too high because of the possibility of over-development. Under the present specification of development policies, the standard under-provision result does not necessarily hold.I reported this paper at the seminars held at Ritsumeikan University, Nagoya University and Kyoto University. The paper was accepted for publication in the Journal of Urban Economics on 5 May 2008 (doi: 10.1016/j.jue.2008.05.002). From 9 May, it is available online in the Elsevier Homepage. Less