Abstract:
This paper considers a world of many symmetric countries where public goods in principle are financed by taxes on saving, investment and pureprofits. In theory, countries could use all three taxes in combination. In practice, however, the tax instrument set may be restricted by, for instance, tax evasion of a particular kind or some international agreement. This paper compares welfare levels if countries set taxes noncooperatively across different tax instrument sets. We find that depending on the strength of preferences for public goods, tax evasion that renders either saving or investment taxes infeasible may be welfare improving, if firms are in part foreign-owned.
