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To assemble to resemble ? A study of tax disparities among French municipalities

Samson, Anne-Laure; Duran-Vigneron, Pascale; Breuillé, Marie-Laure (2011), To assemble to resemble ? A study of tax disparities among French municipalities. https://basepub.dauphine.fr/handle/123456789/6892

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Type
Document de travail / Working paper
Date
2011
Publisher
University of Exeter
Series title
Economics Department Discussion papers series
Series number
11/04
Published in
Exeter
Pages
31
Metadata
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Author(s)
Samson, Anne-Laure
Duran-Vigneron, Pascale
Breuillé, Marie-Laure cc
Abstract (EN)
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of inter-municipal cooperation on local taxation. Municipalities that join/create an inter-municipal jurisdiction choose between three tax regimes, which may induce both horizontal and vertical tax externalities. Using the differences in differences method with a quasi-exhaustive panel for French municipalities over the 1994-2010 period, we show a positive causal effect of cooperation on the level of cumulative tax rates (i.e. the sum of municipal and inter-municipal tax rates). Moreover, we show that cooperation leads to a convergence of tax rates within an inter-municipal structure, which thus reduces tax disparities among municipalities.
Subjects / Keywords
Inter-municipal cooperation; fiscal disparities; tax competition
JEL
H7 - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
H23 - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies