Despite its massive geological endowment and receiving what could be considered the largest windfall in its economic history, Venezuela entered 2020 in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic and turbulence in oil markets represent the latest in a string of problems that expose the country’s vulnerability.
The authors construct a tax competition model in which local governments finance business public services with either a source-based tax on mobile capital, such as a property tax, or a tax on production, such as an origin-based value added tax, and then assess which of the two tax instruments is more efficient.