The remedy may be worse than the disease; a critical account of The Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct for business taxation may, diametrically opposed to its intention, aggravate tax competition between EU Member States. The reason is that it induces, by restricting harmful tax practices, cuts in generic tax rates that may reduce tax revenue even further. If one presupposes a benevolent utility maximising government, then this worsens the underprovision of public goods. We show within a standard tax competition framework that this scenario is more likely to unfold with a higher upper bound for nondistortionary taxes, a higher responsiveness of mobile capital to tax rate differentials, and a smaller endowment of internationally mobile capital.

Agglomeration economies in the Netherlands

In this paper we measure the strength of agglomeration economies on the basis of Dutch regional data. The drift to the city has been going on for hundreds of years. As a result, most economic activity is concentrated in small geographical areas. The advantages of proximity of people and firms go under the name 'agglomeration economies'. We regress regional labour productivity on a set of agglomeration indices, and find evidence for a productivity effect of concentration of production with a malus for industrial variety. Thus, the evidence supports Marschall-Arrow-Romer economies. The evidence does not support, however, Jacobs economies, nor variants of the Creative Class Hypothesis.

How mobile is capital within the European Union?

The key result of the tax competition literature is that governments set inefficiently low tax rates on income from internationally mobile production factors. Therefore, there is a case for coordination of EU capital income taxes, provided that capital is mobile within the EU. We measure how the international allocation of capital depends on taxation by examining the relation between FDI positions and effective corporate income tax rates. An EU country typically increases its FDI position in another EU country by approximately four percent if the latter decreases its effective corporate income tax rate by one percentage point relative to the EU mean. This conditionally support the recent efforts of the EU to coordinate capital income taxation. The benefits or costs of tax coordination ultimately depend, however, on whether one views the government as a social welfare maximising agent or tax revenue maximising leviathan.

Capital income taxation in Europe; trends and trade-offs

The EU capital market integrates. Portfolios become more international, cross border mergers are the order of the day, and never before has there been so much foreign direct investment. This links national tax systems. Residents pay foreign capital income tax, foreigners pay domestic capital income tax, and no member state can afford to overlook the danger of capital flight. What is the appropriate policy response? To do nothing? To coordinate tax systems at the European level? The data do not unequivocally support the tax-race-to-the-bottom hypothesis. On the one hand, member states decrease their statutory capital income tax rates. On the other, they broaden their capital income tax bases. Thus, fear for an economy-wide undertaxation of capital income -the main tenet of tax competition theory- is as yet ungrounded. Nevertheless, tax coordination may be beneficial. It resolves relative undertaxation of particular kinds of capital, forces convergence of capital income tax rates, and creates order in the costly European tax maze. Unfortunately, it simultaneously infringes upon the sovereignty of member states, and sidelines the disciplining force that tax competition exerts on government spending. This study assesses the most important proposals for capital income tax coordination against a background of the recent trends in capital income taxation and the trade offs between distinct policy objectives. It is a guide to the debate that is easy to read, yet firmly grounded in empirical evidence and economic theory.

New Economic Geography, Empirics, and Regional Policy

There are doubts about the effectiveness of regional policy. Well known are the vain attempts of Italy to bridge the gap between the Mezzogiorno and the North, of Germany to bridge the gap between the Neue Länder and the West, and of the European Commission to reduce regional disparities in general. We validate a salient explanation for the lack of effectiveness: agglomeration advantages lock business activity in relatively prosperous core regions, even though wages and production costs tend to be higher there. On the basis of the `New Economic Geography' - a set of general equilibrium models that focus on location choice - in combination with descriptive statistics and econometric analysis, we conclude that the European economic geography is characterized by a network of local and stable core-periphery systems. Since regional policy tend to be insufficient to counter centripetal market forces, disparities between cores and their peripheries at a subprovincial level of regional aggregation are with us to stay. Moreover, if regional policy does have an impact, it may be adverse as some policies targeted on peripheral regions trigger location choices in favour of core regions.

Does European cohesion policy reduce regional disparities? An empirical analysis

European cohesion policy entails predominantly the funding of infrastructure and employment projects in lagging regions of EU Member States. It involves the distribution of more than 35 billion euro annually, making it the second most important EU policy in budgetary terms. Its main aim is to reduce regional disparities in regional welfare. This paper investigates to what extent European cohesion policy achieves this aim. The data reveal poorer regions do tend to receive more cohesion support. The policy thus satisfies a necessary condition for its effectiveness. It remains, however, unclear whether cohesion support significantly increases economic growth. In particular, the more independent convergence one presupposes, the less well cohesion support appears to work. This points at a clear trade-off: either one accepts that regional disparities are here to stay, or one concludes that cohesion policy fails.

Who benefits from tax competition in the European Union?

Statutory tax rates have declined in the European Union in the recent decades. An applied general equilibrium model on corporate taxation sheds light on the economic and welfare implications of tax rate reforms. Domestic distortions proof highly relevant as even unilateral reductions of the corporate income tax rate might reduce welfare if the labour tax rate has to be increased. Profit shifting induces countries to underbid each others tax rates, but this effect is sizable only if two countries are closely linked. The harmful external effects of CIT rate reductions are limited, which reduces the need for European coordination of CIT rates.

Gas exploration and production at the Dutch continental shelf: an assessment of the 'Depreciation at Will'.

This report analyses the effects of Depreciation at Will (DAW) on offshore gas production, government budget and employment in the gas industry. The DAW enables firms to accelerate deprecation of investments in platforms and other offshore equipment. The interest advantage due to the postponed payments of taxes raises the profitability of investment projects and, hence, could raise the level of investments. The key question in the debate on the DAW is whether the higher tax base compensates for the interest losses due to postponed tax receipts. The econometric analysis has shown that the DAW increased only the number of development drillings during the period this measure was implemented (1996-2002). A moving long-run average of the oil price has appeared to be a significantly explaining variable behind the level of exploration drillings as well as development drillings. Using the current value of that oil price, 25 dollar per barrel, we find a large number of profitable exploration projects. In the current circumstances, introduction of the DAW will not raise the level of investments in the near future, as several non-financial factors appear to be bottlenecks, such as the duration of licensing procedures. The econometric analysis is also published in A. ten Cate en M. Mulder, 2007, "Impact of the oil price and fiscal facilities on offshore mining at the Dutch Continental Shelf", Energy Policy , vol 35, pp 5601-5613.

Hoe wordt Nederland Miss Europe?

De Nederlandse welvaartsstaat is niet voldoende toegesneden op de toekomst. De vergrijzing jaagt de kosten van de oudedagsvoorziening en de zorg op, waardoor de spanning tussen jong en oud groeit. Tegelijkertijd dreigen economische integratie en technologische ontwikkeling de positie van laaggeschoolden op de arbeidsmarkt te verslechteren (Nahuis en De Groot, 2003). Verder is de verzorgingsstaat onvoldoende aangepast aan de toegenomen heterogeniteit in de samenleving en werken instituties langdurige inactiviteit in de hand. Er moet daarom verder worden hervormd in de Nederlandse verzorgingsstaat. Maar hoe

New economic geography, empirics, and regional policy

There are doubts about the effectiveness of regional policy. Well known are the fruitless attempts of Italy to bridge the gap between the Mezzogiorno and the North, of Germany to bridge the gap between the Neue Länder and the West, and of the European Commission to reduce regional disparities in general. We validate one explanation: agglomeration advantages lock business activity in relatively prosperous core regions, even though wages – and thus production costs – tend to be higher there. We set off from the ‘New Economic Geography’, a set of general equilibrium models that focus on location choice. Theory, descriptive statistics, and econometric analysis support the conclusion that the European economic geography is characterized by a network of local and stable core periphery systems. This implies that disparities between core regions and their peripheries at a (sub) provincial level of regional aggregation are with us to stay, as regional policy targeted on peripheries tends to be insufficient to counter centripetal market forces. Moreover, even if such policy has an impact, it may be adverse, as core regions may benefit disproportionately in the long run. A focus of regional policy on local agglomerations, which have a realistic chance to hold on to economic activity, is therefore desirable.