Tax mimicking in Spanish municipalities: expenditure spillovers, yardstick competition, or tax competition?

Abstract

This paper evaluates whether the agency problem in public administration shapes Spanish municipalities’ tax policy. To this aim, we have considered 2,431 Spanish municipalities for the period from 2002 to 2013.We find significant evidence of tax mimicking of neighboring municipalities, in both property tax and car tax. However, incumbents are not signaling their competence through tax competition. Rather, expenditure spillovers explain this interaction. Municipalities seek to have the same services and infrastructures as their neighbors. The fact that there is not tax benchmarking does not mean that the agency problem is not present in Spanish municipalities. The agency problem is one of the reasons corruption is so widespread among Spanish municipalities. Regarding the further policy implications of our findings, legislation should direct municipal governments’ decisions towards the real needs of their constituencies.