Suchergebnisse

The voluminous tax competition literature suggests that increased economic integration leads to reduced tax rates and suboptimal levels of government spending as countries compete for mobile factors of production. Integration may influence not only the size of the government but also the structure of public spending. Comprehensive studies analyzing the effect of integration on the overall structure of government spending are rare, however. This article fills this void by providing an empirical analysis of the effects of economic integration on the overall structure of public spending in a number of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries using panel data on the different government spending components for the period 1970 to 2002. The authors find that integration negatively influences government consumption and investment but that there is no empirical evidence that transfers are positively or negatively affected by integration, as suggested by the compensation and efficiency views, respectively.

Transfers, spending, & tax revenue peaked as percentages of the gross national product (GNP) in most OECD countries during 1972-1992. The evidence suggests that a number of countries pushed transfers close to or perhaps beyond sustainable limits imposed by the Laffer curve. Namely: (i) stylized calculations of Laffer limits suggest peak fiscal sizes in the range of observed peaks in the countries with the greatest peak sizes; & (ii) the countries with the greatest peak sizes had the greatest declines in fiscal sizes from peaks until 1992. 5 Tables, 2 Appendixes, 33 References. Adapted from the source document.