LEADERS, FOLLOWERS, AND ASYMMETRIC LOCAL TAX POLICY DIFFUSION
将地方政策扩散建模为动态非对称过程，通过构建政策领导力指数区分领导者与追随者，并利用地方销售税从无到有的数据，揭示了三十年间税收竞争中的非对称领导者-追随者动态。
ABSTRACT Complementing recent theoretical models of tax competition with endogenous leadership, we empirically model local policy diffusion as a dynamic asymmetric process. Using a setting where local option sales taxes rapidly transitioned from nonexistence to ubiquity, we construct a policy leadership index to classify jurisdictions as leaders or followers. Using models that control for vertical tax competition effects, we show how asymmetric leader–follower dynamics characterize horizontal tax competition over the three decades that follow. A placebo test further supports our main conclusions. This methodological approach could be adapted to other settings where policies exhibit both extensive and intensive margins.