Steeve Mongrain

Biography

Professor Steeve Mongrain has a Ph.D. in Economics from Queen's University and is a member of the Department of Economics at Simon Fraser University. He specializes in public economics, law and economics and urban economics. International tax competition is one of is current field of research. Thought-out his career, he published in venues like the International Economic Review, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Urban Economics, the Journal of Law, Economics & Organizations and the Journal of International Economics. In 2003 he and his co-author won the Harry G. Johnson Prize for the best paper published (“Joint Tax Evasion”) in the Canadian Journal of Economics in 2002.

Research Description

Among professor Steeve’s publications and working paper some are particularly relevant for the research paper proposed. In his paper “Joint Tax Evasion” co-authored with R. Boadway and N. Marceau, where they developed a framework to study tax evasion when multiple parties are involved. Due to the nature of tax evasion or avoidance involving tax haven insights for this paper can be relevant.

More closely related are four papers on tax competition. In “Why Do Most Countries Set High Tax Rates on Capital” co-authored with N. Marceau and J. Wilson and published in Journal of International economics, they consider tax competition in a world with tax bases exhibiting different degrees of mobility, modeled as mobile and immobile capital. The paper focus on the merits of agreement among countries not to give preferential treatment to mobile capital results in an equilibrium where mobile capital is nevertheless taxed relatively lightly. In contrast, unrestricted competition for mobile capital results in the preferential treatment of mobile capital by all countries, without cross-country differences in the taxation of mobile capital. Their main result is that the non-preferential regime generates larger expected global tax revenue, despite the sizable revenue loss from the emergence of low-tax countries. By extending the analysis to include cross-country differences in productivity, we are able to resurrect a case for preferential regimes, but only if the productivity differences are sufficiently large.

In “Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Capital Mobility” co-authored with J. Wilson and re-submitted after revision to the Journal of Public Economics, Steeve continue to focus on the ongoing debate in the tax competition literature is the desirability for a system of countries, or regions, to restrict the preferential treatment of different forms of capital. They confirm the widespread belief is that without such restrictions, countries would aggressively compete for mobile capital, resulting in taxes that are far below their desirable level under a robust set of environments. Both of those papers highlight the need for international cooperation to guarantee adequate tax collection. Insights from these two papers will be useful guidance to the propose research project. With T. van Ypersele and graduated Ph.D. student D.Oh, Steeve looks at the impact of profit shifting in a general context of tax competition in the working paper “The price may actually be right; potential benefits of profit shifting”. More specifically, they highlight that by shifting profit, multinational firms who are also likely more mobile face lower effective tax rate than local firms who must pay the higher stationary rate. They found that profit shifting also impact real capital allocation.

Selected Publications

Decreuse, B., S. Mongrain and T. Van Ypersele (2022) ``The allocation of property crime and private protection within cities: theory and evidence’’ forthcoming at the Economic Inquiry.

Hickey, R., S. Mongrain, J. Roberts and T. Van Ypersele (2020), “Private Protection and Public Policing,” Journal of Public Economic Theory 23, 5–28.

Cuff K., S. Mongrain and J. Roberts (2020), “Evasion of Fiscal and Labour Regulations: Firm Behaviour and Optimal Tax Policy,” Journal of Public Economic Theory 22, 69-97.

Mongrain, S. and J.D. Wilson (2018), "Tax competition with heterogeneous capital mobility,'' Journal of Public Economics, 167, 177-189.

Bernhardt, D., S. Mongrain and J. Roberts (2012), "Rehabilitated or not: an Informational Theory of Parole Decisions," Journal of Law, Economics & Organizations, 28, 186-210.

Cuff, K., N. Marceau, S. Mongrain and J. Roberts (2012), "Optimal Policies and the Informal Sector," Journal of Public Economics, 95, 1280-1291.

Marceau, N. and S. Mongrain (2011), "Competition in Law Enforcement and Capital Allocation," Journal of Urban Economics 69, 136-147.

Marceau, N., S. Mongrain and J.D. Wilson (2010), "Why Do Most Countries Set High Tax Rates on Capital?" Journal of International Economics 80, 249-259.

Bernhardt, D. and S. Mongrain (2010), "The Layoff Rat Race" Scandinavian Journal of Economics 112, 185-210.

Mongrain, S. and J. Roberts (2005), "Experience Rating: Insurance Versus Efficiency,” International Economic Review 46, 1303-1319.