Centralized versus decentralized taxation of mobile polluting firms

We consider a world in which a mobile polluting firm must locate in one of two regions. The regions differ in two dimensions: their marginal cost of pollution and the production cost of the firm. It is shown that under incomplete information on regional marginal costs of pollution, fiscal competition may lead to the sub-optimal location of the firm. We also show that under incomplete information, a sub-optimal location is less likely under centralized than under decentralized taxation.