International Studies Quarterly (2009) 53, 761–786
Why is There No Race to the Bottom in Capital Taxation?
Thomas Plu¨mper and Vera E. Troeger University of Essex
Hannes Winner University of Innsbruck
This article explains the absence of a race to the bottom in capital taxa- tion by analyzing fiscal competition under budget rigidities and tax equity constraints (fairness norms). We outline a political economic model of tax competition that treats the outcome of tax competition as one argu- ment in the governments utility function, the others being public expen- diture and tax equity. In accordance with previous theoretical research, tax competition tends to cause a reduction in taxes on mobile capital and an increase in the tax rates on relatively immobile labor in our model. Yet, our model predicts that governments do not fully abolish taxes on mobile capital. Instead, the government being least restricted by budget constraints and equity norms cuts tax rates to levels slightly below the low- est tax rates of those countries, in which governments are more con- strained, where effective constraints are country size, budget rigidities and fairness norms. Analyzing data from 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries between 1975 and 2004 we find empirical support for the hypotheses derived from our theoretical model.
A striking feature of international tax competition is the fact that independent jurisdictions share a mobile tax base. As a consequence, a country lowering its capital tax rate attracts an immediate inflow of capital, thereby reducing the tax base of other countries. These respond to the shrinking tax base and to declin- ing tax revenues by lowering their capital tax rate to competitive levels. In equi- librium, tax rates on mobile capital approach zero in all countries. This result has become popular under the ‘‘race to the bottom’’ hypothesis.1 Yet, tax revenues are for governments what buoyancy is for swimmers: vital. As a consequence, the early models of tax competition—models predicting capital tax rates converging to zero—sent alarming shock waves to politicians. These dire expectations were fueled by political scientists who predicted that governments will find it
Authors’ note: For helpful comments we thank Rob Franzese, Steffen Ganghof, Mark Hallerberg, and Jude Hays. Replication data and Stata do-file can be downloaded from: http://www.polsci.org/pluemper/replication.html. 1 See Wildasin (1989); Wilson (1986); and Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986). Wilson (1999) and Wilson and Wildasin (2004) provided for comprehensive surveys on subsequent research. The zero capital tax equilibrium was most prominently described by Frey (1990), Scharpf (1997), and Tanzi (1995).