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Ogawa et al. (2006) analyze capital tax competition in a fixed-wage approach and show that the original results of Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) are not preserved in the presence of unemployment. In the present paper we challenge this view and investigate capital tax competition for some arbitrary institutional setting of the labor market. We find that if the labor market is characterized by some efficient bargaining solution, the results of Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) are preserved.

Although many studies point to the significant influence of collective bargaining (CB) institutions on earnings inequalities, evidence on how these institutions shape poverty rates across developed economies remains surprisingly scarce. This paper explicitly addresses the relationship between CB systems and working-age poverty rates before and after taxes and transfers in 24 developed countries over the period 1990–2015. Our results show that countries with a more centralized CB system, a more extended bargaining coverage rate and/or a higher trade union density display significantly lower poverty rates. However, these results only hold in a post-tax benefit scenario. Controlling for country and time fixed effects and a wide range of covariates, our estimates indeed suggest that the poverty-reducing effect of CB institutions stems from the political strength of trade unions in promoting public social spending rather than from any direct effect on earnings inequalities. Sensitivity tests for endogeneity and overlapping samples support this conclusion. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

I. The Logic of Tax Politics. 1. The Limits of Zero-Sum Logic. 2. An Asymmetric, Non-Zero-Sum Logic -- II. From Zero-Sum to Non-Zero-Sum Logic: The Transformation of American Tax Politics, 1894 to 1960. 3. The Short Life of Zero-Sum Redistribution. 4. The Establishment of Non-Zero-Sum Political Economy -- III. Growthmanship in the New Frontier. 5. The Macroeconomics of Market Stimulation. 6. Fiscal Redistribution in Two Dimensions. 7. The Politics of Non-Zero-Sum Democracy -- IV. Class Interests and Distributional Bargaining: The Investment Tax Credit of 1962. 8. Business and the Bargaining over the Forms of Subsidization. 9. Labor and the Bargaining over Payoff Reassurances -- V. The Breakdown of Intertemporal Coalition. 10. The Nixon Reversals: The Failure of Short-Run Distributional Payoffs. 11. The Ford Retrenchment: The Failure of Conservative Growthmanship. 12. The Carter Requiem: The Failure of Liberal Accord -- Conclusion: Continuity and Change for the Postwar Regime

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects well-organized and homogenous interest groups so that lobbying affects policy outcomes. In this paper the interaction of factor price bargaining and delegated tax-lobbying is studied. Two agents engage in lobbying: managers of large firms and trade union leaders. Low wealth taxation is the natural consequence of income maxmimization on the side of interest group leaders if (1) managers are in a position to appropriate part of the firms' revenues for themselves and (2) union members cannot monitor the lobbying activities of union leaders.

The purpose of this study was to examine how local governments are responding to budget shortfalls and to explore how compensation practices across the United States are correlated to changes in service delivery. One hundred thirty-four of the largest cities and counties responded to a mail survey, for a response rate of 45 percent. A large percentage (95 percent) of local governments reported experiencing budget shortfalls. In response, local governments are reducing their workforces, laying employees off and/or utilizing reserves rather than raising taxes and/or scaling back wages and benefits. Type of government (county or city) and collective bargaining were associated with budget shortfalls. Despite the fiscal distress of governments, average cost of living increases were between 2 and 3 percent for each of the two years surveyed and nearly half of respondents reported increases in employee benefits (fewer than 10 percent reported any decreases). Collective bargaining was significantly associated with higher increases in benefits, increased cost-of-living adjustments, and responses to budget shortfalls.

Italy is not immune from the long term process towards greater bargaining decentralization under way in Western Europe. The article surveys the main actions, either defined by social partners or by government intervention, which have attempted to encourage this process in recent years, without altering the relative importance of different levels of bargaining. Empirical evidence shows that firm-level bargaining has been associated with innovative managerial practices, but also that a significant share of firms would be willing to sign contracts that would grant higher wages or preserve occupational levels in order to obtain higher flexibility in the use of the workforce. From an institutional standpoint, the main obstacles preventing the adoption of such deals are: i) unresolved issues related to the measurement of trade unions' weight at the national level and to the coexistence of two different workers' representation systems, ii) limits to contract enforcement, iii) limited scope for action of second level bargaining in determining both wages and work organization. The effectiveness of tax breaks encouraging a closer link between wage and productivity at the firm level has been undermined by poor monitoring and frequent changes to the eligibility criteria.

This paper analyzes the impact of legislative committee structure on policy outcomes, comparing a `tax committee' (enacting tax expenditures) and a decentralized system of specialized committees (undertaking direct spending). An endogenous commodity taxation framework is combined with models of legislative bargaining and committee voting. The main conclusion is that the tax committee structure gives rise to lower subsidy levels under a wide range of circumstances. However, it is only under a more restrictive set of assumptions that social welfare is higher in the tax committee regime. This theoretical analysis is illustrated by two examples of institutional change in Congress.

This paper analyzes the impact of legislative committee structure on policy outcomes, comparing a `tax committee' (enacting tax expenditures) and a decentralized system of specialized committees (undertaking direct spending). An endogenous commodity taxation framework is combined with models of legislative bargaining and committee voting. The main conclusion is that the tax committee structure gives rise to lower subsidy levels under a wide range of circumstances. However, it is only under a more restrictive set of assumptions that social welfare is higher in the tax committee regime. This theoretical analysis is illustrated by two examples of institutional change in Congress.

1. Introduction -- 2. Voting patterns -- 3. Voting about the redistribution of income -- 4. How high might the revenue-maximizing tax rate be? -- 5. Bargaining and voting -- 6. Bargaining unexplained -- 7. What exactly is a duty to vote? -- 8. An alternative explanation of the chance of casting a pivotal vote -- 9. The problem of equity -- 10. Voting rights, property rights and civil rights -- 11. Assessing the citizen-candidate model -- 12. The significance of the probabilistic voting theorem

Although many studies point to the significant influence of collective bargaining institutions on earnings inequalities, evidence on how these institutions shape poverty rates across developed economies remains surprisingly scarce. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that the relationship between earnings inequalities and poverty is straightforward. Indeed, whereas earnings inequalities are measured at the individual level, poverty is calculated at the household level using equivalised (disposable) incomes. Accordingly, in most developed countries poverty is not primarily an issue of the working poor. This paper explicitly addresses the relationship between collective bargaining systems and working-age poverty rates in 24 developed countries over the period 1990-2015. Using an up-to-date and fine-grained taxonomy of bargaining systems and relying on state-of-the-art panel data estimation techniques, we find that countries with more centralised and/or coordinated bargaining systems display significantly lower working-age poverty rates than countries with largely or fully decentralized systems. However, this result only holds in a post-tax benefit scenario. Controlling for countryfixed effects and endogeneity, our estimates indeed suggest that the poverty-reducing effect of collective bargaining institutions stems from the political strength of trade unions in promoting public social spending rather than from any direct effect on earnings inequalities.

Although many studies point to the significant influence of collective bargaining institutions on earnings inequalities, evidence on how these institutions shape poverty rates across developed economies remains surprisingly scarce. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that the relationship between earnings inequalities and poverty is straightforward. Indeed, whereas earnings inequalities are measured at the individual level, poverty is calculated at the household level using equivalised (disposable) incomes. Accordingly, in most developed countries poverty is not primarily an issue of the working poor. This paper explicitly addresses the relationship between collective bargaining systems and working-age poverty rates in 24 developed countries over the period 1990-2015. Using an up-to-date and fine-grained taxonomy of bargaining systems and relying on state-of-the-art panel data estimation techniques, we find that countries with more centralised and/or coordinated bargaining systems display significantly lower working-age poverty rates than countries with largely or fully decentralized systems. However, this result only holds in a post-tax benefit scenario. Controlling for countryfixed effects and endogeneity, our estimates indeed suggest that the poverty-reducing effect of collective bargaining institutions stems from the political strength of trade unions in promoting public social spending rather than from any direct effect on earnings inequalities.

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects well-organized and homogenous interest groups so that lobbying affects policy outcomes. In this paper the interaction of factor price bargaining and delegated tax-lobbying is studied. Two agents engage in lobbying: managers of large firms and trade union leaders. Low wealth taxation is the natural consequence of income maxmimization on the side of interest group leaders if (1) managers are in a position to appropriate part of the firms' revenues for themselves and (2) union members cannot monitor the lobbying activities of union leaders.

Although many studies point to the significant influence of collective bargaining institutions on earnings inequalities, evidence on how these institutions shape poverty rates across developed economies remains surprisingly scarce. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that the relationship between earnings inequalities and poverty is straightforward. Indeed, whereas earnings inequalities are measured at the individual level, poverty is calculated at the household level using equivalised (disposable) incomes. Accordingly, in most developed countries poverty is not primarily an issue of the working poor. This paper explicitly addresses the relationship between collective bargaining systems and working-age poverty rates in 24 developed countries over the period 1990-2015. Using an up-to-date and fine-grained taxonomy of bargaining systems and relying on state-of-the-art panel data estimation techniques, we find that countries with more centralised and/or coordinated bargaining systems display significantly lower working-age poverty rates than countries with largely or fully decentralised systems. However, this result only holds in a post-tax benefit scenario. Controlling for country-fixed effects and endogeneity, our estimates indeed suggest that the poverty-reducing effect of collective bargaining institutions stems from the political strength of trade unions in promoting public social spending rather than from any direct effect on earnings inequalities.