Conference on Fiscal Federalism.

• Position: Conferences

The NBER and the CESifo in Munich co-sponsored a Conference on Fiscal Federalism on May 20-22 in Munich. The conference, part of a series of Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminars, was organized by Roger H. Gordon, NBER and University of California, San Diego. The following papers were discussed:

Mihir A. Desai, NBER and Harvard University, and C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines, Jr., NBER and University of Michigan, "Economic Effects of Regional Tax Havens"

Discussants: Roger H. Gordon, and Federico Revelli, University of Turin

Kurt Schmidheiny, Universite de Lausanne, "Income Segregation and Local Progressive Taxation: Empirical Evidence from Switzerland"

Discussants: Hans-Werner Sinn, NBER and University of Michigan, and Katherine Baicker, NBER and Dartmouth College

Thiess Buettner, Mannheim University, "Incentive Effects of Fiscal Equalization Transfers on Tax Policy"

Discussants: Helmuth Cremer, University of Toulouse, and James M. Poterba, NBER and MIT

Federico Revelli, "Performance Rating and Yardstick Competition in Social Service Provision"

Discussants: James R. Hines, Jr., and Jean Hindriks, Catholic University of Louvain

Dennis Epple and Holger Sieg, NBER and Carnegie Mellon University; Stephen Calabrese, University of South Florida; and Thomas Romer, Princeton University, "Myopic Voting and Local Public Good Provision: Theory and Evidence"

Discussants: Soren Blomquist, Uppsala University, and Tim Besley, NBER and Stanford University

Martin Farnham, University of Michigan, and Purvi Sevak, Hunter College, "State Policy and Local Residential Sorting: Are Tiebout Voters Hobbled?"

Discussants: Michelle J. White and Nora Gordon, NBER and University of California, San Diego

Clemens Fuest, University of Cologne, and Bernd Huber, University of Munich, "Can Regional Policy in a Federation Improve Economic Efficiency?"

Discussants: Vesa Kanniainen, University of Helsinki, and John Burbidge, McMaster University

Katherine Baicker and Nora Gordon, "Do State and Local Governments Use Other Public Expenditures Programs to Undo the Redistribution of Court-Ordered School Finance Equalization?"

Discussants: Holger Sieg, and Julia Darby, University of Strathclyde

Julia Darby; and Anton Muscatelli and Graeme Roy, University of Glasgow, "Fiscal Federalism and Fiscal Consolidations: Evidence from an Event Study"

Discussants: Dennis Epple and Thiess Buettner

Katherine Cuff, John Burbidge, and Jack Leach, McMaster University, "Capital Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Firms"

Discussants: Luca Micheletto, Bocconi University, and Clemens Fuest

Jacob L. Vigdor, Duke University, "Median Voters, Nonresidents, and Property Tax Limitations"

Discussants: Brian Knight, University of Greenwich, and Martin Farnham

Jacques Dreze, CORE; Charles Figuieres, University of Bristol, and Jean Hindriks, "Voluntary Matching Grants"

Discussants: Alexander Plekhanov, Cambridge University, and Jacob L. Vigdor

Using affiliate-level data, Desai, Foley, and Hines analyze the impact of tax haven operations on the non-haven activities of American multinational firms. The evidence implies that American firms use tax haven affiliates both to reallocate taxable income away from high-tax jurisdictions and to facilitate deferral of repatriation taxes, particularly...