Interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition: The optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy

Abstract

This paper explores the implications of the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition for the optimal provision of public goods under representative democracy à la Osborne and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997). As an extension of Hoyt’s (1991) finding that intensified tax competition is always harmful and aggravates the extent to which public goods are undersupplied in a region, we show that intensified tax competition can be beneficial if political as well as tax competition is considered. In particular, we identify plausible conditions under which (i) there is an optimal intensity of tax competition such that the interaction between interregional tax competition and intraregional political competition will result in the optimal provision of public goods and (ii) intensified tax competition will be beneficial if and only if the degree of tax competition is less than this optimal intensity.