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Strategic Inter–Regional Transfers
Author(s) -
Hindriks Jean,
Myles Gareth D.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of public economic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.809
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1467-9779
pISSN - 1097-3923
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9779.00131
Subject(s) - economics , commit , redistribution (election) , competition (biology) , capital (architecture) , tax competition , regional policy , nash equilibrium , microeconomics , international economics , public economics , indirect tax , biology , history , ecology , archaeology , database , politics , computer science , political science , tax reform , law
We derive the equilibrium level of redistribution from one mobile factor (say, the rich or capital) to another possibly mobile factor (say, the poor or labour) when regions choose both their inter–regional transfers and redistributive policies non–cooperatively. It is shown that inter–regional transfers are always desirable (to mitigate the fiscal competition), but cannot be sustained (as a Nash equilibrium) when chosen simultaneoulsy with the redistributive policy. On the other hand, if regions can pre–commit to inter–regional transfers before setting their redistributive policy, their strategic effect makes efficient inter–regional transfers sustainable. However, there are also equilibria with inefficiently small inter–regional transfers or no transfers at all. The effects of regional asymmetries and additional regions on these results are also analyzed.