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Public Goods and Tax Competition in a Two‐Sided Market
Author(s) -
KOTSOGIANNIS CHRISTOS,
SERFES KONSTANTINOS
Publication year - 2010
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/j.1467-9779.2009.01439.x
Subject(s) - inefficiency , economics , competition (biology) , welfare , order (exchange) , microeconomics , tax competition , public good , deadweight loss , general equilibrium theory , tax policy , monetary economics , ad valorem tax , tax reform , public economics , market economy , ecology , finance , biology
A rather neglected issue in the tax competition literature is the dependence of equilibrium outcomes on the presence of firms and shoppers (two‐sided markets). Making use of a model of vertical and horizontal differentiation, within which jurisdictions compete by providing public goods and levying taxes in order to attract firms and shoppers, this paper characterizes the noncooperative equilibrium. It also evaluates the welfare implications for the jurisdictions of a popular policy of tax coordination: The imposition of a minimum tax. It is shown that the interaction of the two markets affects the intensity of tax competition and the degree of optimal vertical differentiation chosen by the competing jurisdictions. Though the noncooperative equilibrium is, as it is typically the case, inefficient such inefficiency is mitigated by the strength of the interaction in the two markets. A minimum tax policy is shown to be effective when the strength of the interaction is weak and ineffective when it is strong.