We test the hypothesis that the flypaper effect can arise if the recipient government finances part of its expenditures with a distortionary tax. We present a simple theoretical framework that shows how a lump-sum transfer stimulates the marginal expenditures of a recipient government through an...

The authors extend the Ahmad and Stern (1984) framework for calculating the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) for excise taxes in Thailand by incorporating non-tax distortions caused by (a) environmental externalities, (b) public expenditure externalities, (c) market power in setting prices,...

Concerns have been expressed that, in an era of high capital mobility, international tax competition will lead to an inexorable decline in taxes levied on capital, shifting the tax burden to the relative immobile inputs, labour, and land. Some view this as a threat to the financial and political...

Equalisation grants can affect a state's fiscal behaviour because its tax policies can affect the size of its grant. For a large state, an increase in its tax rate will increase the standard tax rate used to calculate the grant for that base and thereby reduce (increase) the state's grant if it...

We examine the impact of the Canadian provincial governments’ tax rates on economic growth using panel data covering the period 1977–2006. We find that a higher provincial statutory corporate income tax rate is associated with lower private investment and slower economic growth. Our...

A median voter model is developed to explain the size of the vertical fiscal gap in a federation, i.e. the extent to which subnational governments' expenditures exceed their own-source tax revenues. In our model, individuals vote in subnational elections and in federal elections to determine tax...

We generalize the Boadway and Keen (2006) model of adverse selection in a capital market to allow for risk aversion on the part of entrepreneurs. We show that the Boadway and Keen conclusion-that adverse selection leads to excessive investment-does not necessarily hold when entrepreneurs are...

Does democracy lead to the creation of too many municipalities? We analyze this issue within the context of the Alesina and Spolare (1996) model where the quality of municipal services deteriorates with the distance from the center of a municipality. Individuals can vote in a referendum to split...