The Global Diffusion of Tax Policies, Norms and Institutions

Abstract

Taxation is a core power of the nation state, as tax revenue constitutes the resource basis on which governments act. In a globalized world with mobile firms and capital tax policy is, however, no longer a solely domestic issue, but is increasingly constrained by international competition. Taxation is, thus, a poster child of policy diffusion. The downwards trend in corporate tax rates has been widely studied in the OECD world. Yet today, tax policy diffusion is no longer restricted to the field of corporate taxation in the global north, but encompasses additional levels of political decision making, such as the sub-national and the global. Furthermore other tax types, such as those on private income and consumption, as well as distinct diffusion mechanisms, such as the activities of international organizations or civil society actors, matter for the analysis of the modern tax state. This panel aims to account for these empirical transformations and to advance new perspectives on the global diffusion of tax policies. Since the phenomena at hand are no longer restricted to the global north, we are not only interested in empirical or theoretical contributions considering tax policy diffusion within but also outside the OECD world. We especially invite proposals that apply diverse methodological tools such as spatial econometrics, process tracing, or content analysis.

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