We study the optimal combination of corporate tax rate and tax base in a model of a small open economy with heterogeneous firms. We show that it is optimal for the small country's government to effectively subsidize capital inputs by granting a tax allowance in excess of the true costs of...

We show that, in competition between a developed country and a developing country over environmental standards and taxes, the developing country may have a second-mover advantage. In our model, firms do not unanimously prefer lower environmental-standard levels. We introduce this feature to an...

We analyze the optimal tax choices of a revenue-maximizing government that levies taxes from firms of which the true degree of mobility is ex ante unknown. Differential tax treatment of immobile and mobile firms is ruled out, but the government may learn from the firms' location responses to...

The tax competition for mobile capital, in particular the reluctance of small countries to agree on measures of tax coordination, has ongoing political and economic fallouts within Europe. We analyse the effects of introducing a two tier structure of capital taxation, where the asymmetric member...

Heterogeneous firm productivity seems to provide an argument for governments to pursue 'pick-the-winner' strategies by subsidizing highly productive firms more, or taxing them less, than their less productive counterparts. We appraise this argument by studying the optimal choice of effective tax...

Against a background of rather mixed evidence about transfer pricing practices in multinational enterprises (MNEs) and varying attitudes on the part of tax authorities, this paper explores how multiple aims in transfer pricing can be pursued across four different transfer pricing regimes. A MNE...

We present a new model of tax induced transfer pricing as an alternative to the oft-used concealment model. Inspired by interviews with practitioners, we consider a large multinational firm which is audited by the tax authority in the high-tax location. When this country adjusts the transfer...

When a region successfully attracts a large firm by offering tax concessions, outright subsidies etc., the firm often commits itself to performance targets in terms of investment or employment. This paper interprets these contractually fixed targets as a consequence of incomplete information. It...

This paper examines the flexibility of multinational firms to use income-shifting strategies within a tax year to react to operating losses. First, we develop an analytical model that considers how affiliate losses can be adjusted by using the transfer prices of tangible and intangible assets,...

Multinational firms are known to shift profits and countries are known to compete over shifty profits. Two major principles for corporate taxation are Separate Accounting (SA) and Formula Apportionment (FA). These two principles have very different qualities when it comes to preventing profit...