Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Tax Incentives

This paper considers two empirical questions about tax incentives: (1) are incentives used as tools of tax competition and (2) how effective are incentives in attracting investment? To answer these, we prepared a new dataset of tax incentives in over 40 Latin American, Caribbean and African countries for the period 1985-2004. Using spatial econometrics techniques for panel data to answer the first question, we find evidence for strategic interaction in tax holidays, in addition to the well-known competition over the corporate income tax rate. We find no evidence, however, for competition over