quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non-commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. Un ive rsi ty f C ap e T ow n "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that in all business transactions, tax is a cost like any other, and, like any other, it ought to be- if the business is to remain competitive-no greater than it has to be... "

for local environmental quality such that marginal willingness-to-pay equals the marginal social costs of a cleaner environment. However, in cases where jurisdictions are not homogeneous or where, for various reasons, they set a positive tax rate on capital, distortions arise not only in local fiscal

theoretical and empirical evidence

competition theory, derives new empirical implications from different theories of fiscal federalism, and tests those hypotheses with new variables and data. Cross-national statistical results show that jurisdictional competition under fiscal federalism is associated with reductions in the administrative

Where are the world’s secrecy jurisdictions?

Abstract This paper aims at analysing the population size of local jurisdictions with respect to the characteristics of the goods they provide to their citizens. The economic analysis on the size of government units is mainly founded on the classical fiscal federalism literature JEL

This paper surveys the literature on fiscal competition. We consider tax and expenditure competition in a more general set up where different jurisdictions within a federation may compete in the provision of public goods in order to attract some residents (Tiebout, 1956) and expel others (Brueckner

This article provides theoretical and empirical evidence that local fiscal competition generates a bias toward low business tax rates. Furthermore, it is shown that this bias is stronger for smaller jurisdictions. First, a theoretical model is settled with private and public capital and a fixed

Abstract This paper analyzes fiscal competition among numerous spatially-separated jurisdictions in an explicitly dynamic framework. The degree of factor mobility between jurisdictions is imperfect because it is costly and time-consuming to adjust factor stocks. Even if it is harmful in the long

There is a rich literature on the fiscal implications of municipal consolidations. Almost all of it is focused on city–county consolidations. City–city consolidations, although rare, are an even better setting to test the claim that municipal consolidation reduces local government taxing