 Will Social Welfare Expenditures Survive Tax Competition&questOxford Review of Economic Policy, 2006, vol. 22, issue 3, 330-348 Abstract: Increasing economic openness creates demands for social welfare programmes designed to cushion the impact of economic changes, but may also encourage governments to reduce tax rates to attract mobile economic resources. Competitive tax reductions could then prevent governments from being able to finance significant welfare spending. Alternatively, economic globalization might improve the ability of governments to afford social welfare programmes--and several considerations point in this direction. First, taxes on internationally mobile activity represent only small fractions of total revenue collections; personal income taxes, value-added taxes, and social insurance contributions finance most social welfare spending. Second, international competition need not reduce taxes, and indeed, over the past 25 years, corporate tax collections have remained high as fractions of GDP and total taxes. Third, the vitality of a country's economy largely determines its level of social spending. To the extent that incomes rise as a result, greater economic openness should strengthen provision of social welfare. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press. Date: 2006 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxford:v:22:y:2006:i:3:p:330-348 Access Statistics for this article Oxford Review of Economic Policy is currently edited by Christopher Adam More articles in Oxford Review of Economic Policy from Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited |
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