No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Les interactions fiscales verticales à la lumière de la théorie des multiprincipaux
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2015
Résumé
Ce papier examine l'externalité verticale provenant de l'imposition d'une même base par des gouvernements aux territoires gigognes, phénomène récurrent observé dans la plupart des organiations étatiques et ayant fait l'objet d'un éclairage moins soutenu que celui de concurrence fiscale horizontale. Le modèle étudie un système comportant plusieurs niveaux de dèci-deurs et utilise la théorie des multiprincipaux pour analyser l'optimalité du degré de taxe lorsque plusieurs autorités exercent leur pouvoir fiscal sur une même assiette imposable. Cette théorie permet en effet d'appréhender et de décrire les mécanismes de concurrence entre différents décideurs poursuivant des objectifs propres. Il ressort que le comportement non coopératif de collectivités appartenant à différents niveaux administratifs et partageant une même base fiscale conduit à une hausse du taux de taxation auquel cette base est soumise. Chacun néglige en effet la perte de recettes fiscales qu'il inflige aux autres niveaux de gouvernement etdéfinit donc une taxe supérieure à celle qui correspondrait au coût marginal social. Le taux final d'imposition excède celui qui résulterait de l'exercice par un seul décideur public de la politique fiscale à mettre en oeuvre. Il apparaît en outre que la prise en compte d'une asymétrie d'information exerce un effet dépressif sur le niveau global d'imposition en conauisant chaque échelon à accorder une rente aux firmes, et donc à modérer sa pression fiscale, afin qu'elles révèlent leur information privéeet que puissent être mises en oeuvre les politiques les plus proches d'un optimum social.
Summary
The very essence of both federal and unitary countries is multi-tiered governments. This architecture typically involves some commonality of tax bases between higher- and lower-level authorities. This process points to the existence of vertical externalities, i.e. of an inefficiently high degree of tax ation. The central purpose of this paper is to explore the distribution of taxing powers among tiers of governments, and to analyze the nature and the consequences of the vertical externality that arises when different levels of government share joint property tax bases. To that end, the multi-principal theory is highly relevant since the different layers of government can be regarded as competing power centres. We provide a simple taxation model and consider a structure of overlapping governments that co-occupy a same tax base. We show that an independent behaviour of both levels of government results in the cumulated tax rate being too high with respect to a cooperative solution. Actually, when she independently makes her choice and unilaterally raises her tax rate, each level of government ignores the losses of fiscal receipts that other levels will suffer from the induced contraction of the shared tax base. Hence she under-valuates the social marginal cost of raising tax revenue from the common tax base. However, information asymmetry tends to lower the global level of taxation as some rents have to be given up to firms in order to make them reveal their private feature.
Keywords
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 27 - 46
- Copyright
- Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2012
Footnotes
*
Je remercie vivement David MARTIMORT et Jacques LE CACHEUX pour leur aide, leur conseils précieux, la richesse des échanges constructifs qu'ils m'ont permis d'avoir avec eux.
References
Bibliographie
Bernheim, D., and Whinston, M. (1986), “Common agency.” Econometrica, Vol. 54(4) pp. 923–942.Google Scholar
Besley, T., and Rosen, H. (1998), “Vertical externalities in tax setting: evidence from gasoline and cigarettes”, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 70(3), December, pp. 383–398.Google Scholar
Boadway, R., and Keen, M. (1996), “Efficiency and the Optimal Direction of Federal-State Transfers”, International Tax and Public Finance, Vol. 3(2), May, pp. 137–155.Google Scholar
Brett, C., and Pinske, J. (2000), “The Determinants of Municipal Tax Rates in British Columbia”, Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 33, pp. 695–714.Google Scholar
Cassing, J., and Hillman, A. (1982), “State-Federal Resource Tax Rivalry: the Queensland Railway and the Federal Export Tax”, Economic Record, Vol. 58, pp. 235–241.Google Scholar
Cornu, JY.(1999), Les cofinancements entre collectivités publiques: une perspective de microéconomie appliquée, Thèse de Doctorat en Sciences Economiques, Université de Paris X.Google Scholar
Dahlby, B., and Wilson, L. (2003), “Vertical Fiscal Externalities in a Federation”, Journal of Public Economies, Vol. 87, pp. 917–930.Google Scholar
Diaw, K., and Pouyet, J. (2000), “Tax Competition Between Asymmetrically Informed Governments”, Working Paper CERAS-ENPC, n° 00–03.Google Scholar
Diaw, K., and Pouyet, J., (2004), “The Dilemma of Tax Competition: How (Not) to Attract (Inefficient) Firms?”, Discussion Paper, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research, n° 68.Google Scholar
Esteller-Moré, A., and Solé-Ollé, A. (2001), “Vertical Income Tax Externalities and Fiscal Interdependence evidence from the US”, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol. 31, pp. 247–272.Google Scholar
Esteller-Moré, A., and Sol, A.é-Ollé (2002), “Tax Setting in a Federal System: The Case of Personal Income Taxation in Canada”, International Tax and Public Finance, Vol. 9, pp. 235–257.Google Scholar
Flochel, L., and Madiès, T. (2002), “Interjurisdictional Tax Competition in a Federal System of Overlapping Revenue Maximizing Governments”, International Tax and Public Finance, Vol. 9, pp. 121–141.Google Scholar
Flowers, M. (1988), “Shared tax sources in a Leviathan model of federalism”, Public Finance Quarterly, Vol. 16(1), pp. 66–77.Google Scholar
Goodspeed, T.(1998), “The relationship between state income taxes and local property taxes: education finance in New Jersey”, National Tax Journal, Vol. 51(2), pp. 219–238.Google Scholar
Goodspeed, T. (2002), “Tax competition and tax structure in open federal economies: Evidence from OECD countries with implications for the European Union”, European Economic Review, Vol. 46 pp. 357–374.Google Scholar
Hayashi, M., and Boadway, R. (2001), “An Empirical Analysis of Intergovernmental Tax Interaction: The Case of Business Income Taxes in Canada”, Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 34(2), pp. 481–503.Google Scholar
Johnson, R.(1988), “Income Redistribution in a Federal System”, American Economic Review, Vol. 78(3), pp. 570–573.Google Scholar
Keen, M.(1998), “Vertical Tax Externalities in the Theory of Fiscal Federalism”, IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 45(3), pp. 454–484.Google Scholar
Keen, M., and Kotsogiannis, C. (2002), “Does Federalism Lead to Excessively High Taxes?”, American Economic Review, Vol. 92, pp. 363–370.Google Scholar
Keen, M., and Kotsogiannis, C. (2004), “Tax Competition in Federations and the Welfare Consequences of Decentralization”, Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 56(3), pp. 397–407.Google Scholar
Laffont, J.-J. and Tiróle, J. (1993), A theory of incentives in procurement and regulation, Cambridge, MIT Press.Google Scholar
Laffont, J-J., and Martimort, D. (2002), The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Laussel, D., and Le Breton, M. (1993), “On The Tax Schedule Nash Equilibria Of A Fiscal Competition Games II: The Large Investor's Case”, mimeo University of Aix-Marseille II.Google Scholar
Laussel, D., and Le Breton, M. (1994), “On The Tax Schedule Nash Equilibria Of A Fiscal Competition Games I: The Case of a Continuum of Investors”, mimeo University of Aix-Marseille II.Google Scholar
Madiès, T. (2001), “Fiscalité superposée et externalités fiscales verticales: faut-il reconsidérer le débat entre concurrence et coopération fiscale?”, L'actualité économique, Revue d'analyse économique, Vol. 77(4), PP. 593–612.Google Scholar
Martimort, D. (1992), “Multi-principaux avec anti-sélection”, Annales d’Economie et de Statistique, Vol. 28, pp. 1–37.Google Scholar
Martimort, D. (1996), “The multiprincipal nature of government”, European Economie Review, Vol. 40, pp. 673–685.Google Scholar
Martimort, D. (2007), “Multi-Contracting Mechanism Design”, Advances in Economic Theory Proceedings of the World Congress of the Econometric Society, eds, Blundell, Newey and Persson, Cambridge University Press (2007).Google Scholar
Martimort, D., and Stole, L. (2002), “The Taxation and the Revelation Principles under Uommon Agency”, Econometrica, Vol 70, pp. 1659–1673.Google Scholar
Martimort, D., and Stole, L. (2003), “Contractual Externalities and Common Agency Equilibria”, http://www.bepress.com/bejte/advances/vol3/issi/art4. Advances in Theoretical Economics.Google Scholar
Martimort, D., and Stole, L. (2004), “Market Participation under Delegated and Intrinsic Common Agency Games”, mimeo IDEL
Google Scholar
Oates, W.E. (1999), “An essay on fiscal federalism”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 37, pp. 1120–1149.Google Scholar
Olsen, T., and Osmundsen, P. (2001), “Strategic tax competition; implications of national ownership”, European Economic Review, Vol 81, pp. 253–277.Google Scholar
Page, F., and Monteiro, P. (2003), “Three principles of competitive nonlinear pricing”, Journal of Mathematical Economics, Vol. 39, pp. 63–109.Google Scholar
Sand-Zantman, W. (2002), “Constitutional Design and Regional Favoritism”, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Vol. 4(1), pp. 71–93.Google Scholar
Sobel, R. (1997), “Optimal Taxation in a Federal System of Governments”, Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 64(2), pp. 468–485.Google Scholar
Touya, F. (2011), “Interactions fiscales verticales dans un cadre d'asymétrie d'information”, Public Economies, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Vigneault, M., and Boadway, R. (1996), “The Interaction of Federal and Provincial Taxes on Business”, Working Paper Technical Committee on Business Taxation, n° 96–11.Google Scholar
Zissimos, B., and Wooders, M. (2008), “Public good differentiation and the intensity of tax competition”, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 92, pp. 1105–1121.Google Scholar