Risikomessung unter Solvency II

With the enlargement of the European Union in 2005 several countries with a particularly low level of corporate taxation entered the Single Market. Big differences in taxation provide an incentive for insurance companies to shift their business activity into countries with low taxation. This incentive is aggravated by falling transport costs for insurance products over the last decade. This paper outlines the main factors driving the location choice of firms in an agglomeration model and presents additional, tax- and insurance business-related factors. Due to the peculiar production process in the insurance industry this industry is especially well suited for an empirical test of the efficacy of tax-related incentives to shift production abroad. The shifting of value added across borders is usually associated with cover up costs. In the insurance industry profit shifting can be done at high volume and low costs through reinsurance at foreign subsidiaries. This paper tests the hypothesis that differences in taxation induce a shift of business activity into low tax countries indirectly by estimating a model for Austrian data on international trade with insurance services.     

德国新型个人储蓄性养老保险计划述评

德国新型个人储蓄性养老保险计划(里斯特养老金和吕库普养老金)通过税收优惠和直接补贴的方式极大地激发了个人购买储蓄性养老保险计划的热情,多角度分析上述两种养老金计划,总结其成功经验,对我国促进个人储蓄性养老保险计划的发展有一定的启示。     

国内外完善养老保险制度研究的文献综述

随着我国老龄化进程的加快,养老问题的严峻性日益凸显,养老保险制度的进一步优化完善,成为近年来国内养老保险领域专家和学者关注的焦点.本文通过梳理国内外关于养老保险制度完善相关研究文献发现,相对于国外专家和学者围绕公共养老保险的央地责任分摊、多层次养老保险体系的构建与优化、推进养老保险基金的可持续性,以及养老保险效率提升等开展的探讨和研究,国内学者更多聚焦于养老保险制度本身的设计和重构、多层次养老保险体系的健全完善、税收激励推动养老保险结构化均衡发展,以及养老保险运行效率提升等视角,并由此提出完善我国养老保险制度的未来主要方向.     

The effect of leverage on the tax-cut versus investment-subsidy argument

Two common methods of attracting corporate investment are investment incentives and tax incentives. It is important to use the two incentives in the correct proportions, otherwise the government will give up too much value in the process of attracting investment. This paper examines the effect of tax cut and investment subsidy on the government's net benefit from a project. Earlier studies concluded that it was optimal to use only investment subsidy and no tax cuts. We show that this is not true when debt financing is possible, and it is generally optimal (from the government's perspective) to use a combination of tax reduction and investment subsidy. The optimal tax rate and optimal investment subsidy are identified and analyzed in the paper. It is shown that using a sub-optimal combination of incentives can result in substantial reduction of benefits for the government.     

The Impact of Rate Regulation on Claims: Evidence From Massachusetts Automobile Insurance

The article tests the hypothesis that insurance price subsidies created by rate regulation lead to higher insurance cost growth. The article makes use of data from the Massachusetts private passenger automobile insurance market, where cross‐subsidies were explicitly built into the rate structure through rules that limit rate differentials and differences in rate increases across driver rating categories. Two approaches are taken to study the potential loss cost reaction to the Massachusetts cross‐subsidies. The first approach compares Massachusetts with all other states while controlling for demographic, regulatory, and liability coverage levels. Loss cost levels that were about 29 percent above the expected level are found for Massachusetts during years 1978–1998, when premiums charged were those fixed by the state and included explicit subsidies for high‐risk drivers. A second approach considers changing cost levels across Massachusetts by studying loss cost changes by town and relating those changes to subsidy providers and subsidy receivers. Subsidy data based on accident year data for 1993–2004 show a significant and positive (relative) growth in loss costs and an increasing proportion of high‐risk drivers for towns that were subsidy receivers, in line with the theory of underlying incentives for adverse selection and moral hazard.     

日本养老保险的税收政策及启示

目前,我国的养老保险制度存在一定的缺陷:基本养老保险覆盖面窄,替代率过高;企业年金和个人储蓄性养老保险发展缓慢。本文介绍了日本运用税收政策促进养老保险制度发展的做法,并从中得出了一些可供我国借鉴的经验:基本养老保险税收政策暂不宜进行调整;应尽快制定企业年金的相关税收政策;对个人储蓄性养老保险进行税收扶持。     

基于行业差异的企业年金最优个人缴费率研究

借助于两期叠代模型,构建个人效用函数以及政府社会福利函数,测算满足个人生命周期效用最大化和社会福利最大化的最优企业年金个人缴费率.研究表明:全社会最优的年金个人缴费率为6.40％,当前费率水平还有较大提升空间;按各行业最优缴费率征缴年金费用,可以提高年金制度的养老保障程度;把过剩的年金缴费能力转移给个人账户,可以实现帕累托优化效果;给予年金个人缴费5％的税收优惠,可以鼓励和加快年金制度发展.     

Basel II and the Need for Bank Distress Resolution Procedures*

It is argued that without increased market discipline Basel II is not likely to resolve the regulatory problem caused by explicit and implicit guarantees of depositors and other creditors of banks. One way to enhance market discipline is to implement proposals for mandatory subordinated debt. For these proposals to achieve their objective, the non‐insurance of holders of subordinated debt must be credible. Increased credibility of non‐insurance of one or several groups of creditors could be enhanced if distress resolution procedures for banks were pre‐specified, and if they made possible bank failures without serious disruption of the financial system. The existence of rules for dealing with banks in distress not only enhances the credibility of non‐insurance of some creditors, it also allows for predictability of distress resolution costs for shareholders and management of banks. Such costs—if predictable—reduce the moral hazard incentives caused by deposit insurance schemes.     

Making do: state constraints and local responses in California’s education finance system

California’s unique education finance system combines general state support for school districts, numerous state categorical aid programs, a restricted local property tax, and two unusual small local revenue sources: a parcel tax and contributions from educational foundations. This paper explores the incentives this system creates for local voters and school officials and estimates the impact of these incentives on education costs, school district efficiency, and the demand for student performance. The paper finds that voters in California respond to the price incentives in this system even though they work through the hard-to-pass parcel tax instead of the property tax; that educational outcomes are strongly influenced by student characteristics and other factors that influence educational costs; that school district efficiency is undermined by the state’s current emphasis on categorical instead of unrestricted aid; and that, overall, the education finance system is not well designed to meet the state’s educational objectives.     

Uncertainty and the neutrality of government financing policy

Some ideas from the theory of finance are applied to consider whether debt-financed tax cuts affect desired consumption. It is shown that government financing policy is a matter of indifference to infinitely-lived households, if a perfect substitute for public debt exists. The analysis allows for uncertainty about future taxes, and for missing markets in some kinds of assets. Income redistribution risk, and the public insurance aspects of an income tax scheme, qualify this neutrality result, but in general the net effect is ambiguous. The real resource costs of financial transacting, as well as government superiority in the intermediation process, may be one rationale for activist debt-management policy. A better understanding of functioning capital markets is essential to evaluate these arguments.     

Risk‐Sharing or Risk‐Taking? Counterparty Risk,Incentives, and Margins

Derivatives activity, motivated by risk‐sharing, can breed risk‐taking. Bad news about the risk of an asset underlying a derivative increases protection sellers' expected liability and undermines their risk‐prevention incentives. This limits risk‐sharing, creates endogenous counterparty risk, and can lead to contagion from news about the hedged risk to the balance sheet of protection sellers. Margin calls after bad news can improve protection sellers' incentives and in turn enhance risk‐sharing. Central clearing can provide insurance against counterparty risk but must be designed to preserve risk‐prevention incentives.     

Comparing in‐work benefits and the reward to work for families with children in the US and the UK

The income transfer systems for low‐income families in the US and the UK try both to reduce poverty and to encourage work. In‐work benefits are a key part of both countries' strategies through the earned income tax credit and the working families' tax credit (and predecessors) respectively. But tax credits are only one part of the whole tax and welfare system. In‐work benefits, taxes and welfare benefits combine in both countries to provide good financial incentives for lone parents to do minimum‐wage work, but poorer incentives to increase earnings further. But direct comparisons of budget constraints hide important points of detail. First, not enough is known about what determines take‐up of in‐work benefits. Second, the considerable differences in assessment and payment mechanisms and frequency between EITC and WFTC mean that low‐income families in the US and the UK may respond very differently to apparently similar financial incentives.     

Tax-Induced Trading of Equity Securities: Evidence from the ADR Market

We examine ex‐dividend date trading of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) using a sample of 1,043 dividends over the period 1988 to 1995. ADR dividends are often subject to foreign withholding taxes, creating incentives for certain investors to avoid the distribution. ADRs exhibit negative abnormal ex‐dividend day returns, and their prices behave consistently with their related withholding taxes. Abnormal trading volume for taxable issues exceeds 130 percent and 300 percent of normal volume on the cum‐ and ex‐dates, respectively. Abnormal volume is an increasing function of foreign withholding tax rates and decreasing function of transactions costs. This abnormal ex‐date trading activity is consistent with tax‐motivated trading.     

Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Insurance and Aggressive Tax‐Reporting Activities: Evidence from Canada

This paper examines the relationship between directors’ and officers’ liability insurance (D&O insurance) and firms’ aggressive tax reporting. Using large Canadian public companies listed on the TSX300 and relying on several measures to capture aggressive tax‐reporting activities, including GAAP effective tax rates, cash effective tax rates, and the total and residual book‐tax differences, I find that D&O insurance exhibits a strong negative relationship with the GAAP effective tax rates and a strong positive relationship with both the total and residual book‐tax differences. However, there is generally no evidence showing that D&O insurance is associated with the cash effective tax rates. I interpret these results as indicating that D&O insurance reduces the tax expenses reported in the financial statements but not the actual tax paid. In other words, D&O insurance contributes to financial tax management but not to cash tax savings. Further tests in this study reveal that firms with fluctuating D&O coverage limits engage in more aggressive tax reporting than other firms, suggesting that managers may consider the level of D&O insurance that they purchase when they make aggressive tax‐reporting decisions.     

Unemployment,Government Spending and the Laffer Effect*

The paper studies the effects of income tax rate changes in a general equilibrium model with frictional unemployment. Laffer curve effects, by which a tax rate reduction may increase the level of government spending or its share in output, are shown to be possible under certain conditions. These are the presence of unemployment benefit payments, government budget balance through fiscal spending adjustment and limited quantitative importance of labour reallocation costs. Endogenous government spending acts as a fiscal accelerator if the fiscal burden of unemployment benefit payments is large, but reduces the employment effects of tax rate cuts if it is low.     

Equity Risk Incentives and Corporate Tax Aggressiveness

This study examines equity risk incentives as one determinant of corporate tax aggressiveness. Prior research finds that equity risk incentives motivate managers to make risky investment and financing decisions, since risky activities increase stock return volatility and the value of stock option portfolios. Aggressive tax strategies involve significant uncertainty and can impose costs on both firms and managers. As a result, managers must be incentivized to engage in risky tax avoidance that is expected to generate net benefits for the firm and its shareholders. We predict that equity risk incentives motivate managers to undertake risky tax strategies. Consistent with this prediction, we find that larger equity risk incentives are associated with greater tax risk and the magnitude of this effect is economically significant. Our results are robust across four measures of tax risk, but do not vary across several proxies for strength of corporate governance. We conclude that equity risk incentives are a significant determinant of corporate tax aggressiveness.     

Do Firms Hedge in Response to Tax Incentives?

There are two tax incentives for corporations to hedge: to increase debt capacity and interest tax deductions, and to reduce expected tax liability if the tax function is convex. We test whether these incentives affect the extent of corporate hedging with derivatives. Using an explicit measure of tax function convexity, we find no evidence that firms hedge in response to tax convexity. Our analysis does, however, indicate that firms hedge to increase debt capacity, with increased tax benefits averaging 1.1 percent of firm value. Our results also indicate that firms hedge because of expected financial distress costs and firm size.     

Optimal student loans and graduate tax under moral hazard and adverse selection

We characterize the set of second‐best “menus” of student‐loan contracts in an economy with risky labor‐market outcomes, adverse selection, moral hazard, and risk aversion. We combine student loans with optimal income taxation. Second‐best optima provide incomplete insurance because of moral hazard. Optimal repayments must be income contingent, or the income tax must comprise a graduate tax. Individuals are ex ante unequal because of differing probabilities of success, and ex post unequal, because taxation trades off incentives and redistribution. In addition, second‐best optima exhibit an interim equalization property: the poststudy but prework expected utilities of newly graduated student types must be equal.     

The Impact of Introducing Insurance Guaranty Schemes on Pricing and Capital Structure

The introduction of an insurance guaranty scheme can have significant influence on the pricing and capital structures in a competitive market. The aim of this article is to study this effect on competitive equity–premium combinations while considering a framework with policyholders and equity holders where guaranty fund charges are volume‐based, as levied in existing schemes. Several settings with regard to the origin of the fund contributions are assessed and the immediate effects on the incentives of the policyholders and equity holders are analyzed through a one‐period contingent claim approach. One result is that introducing a guaranty scheme in a market with competitive conditions entails a shift of equity capital towards minimum solvency requirements. Hence, adverse incentives may arise with regard to the overall security level of the industry.     

Capital, corporate income taxes, and catastrophe insurance

We provide estimates of the equity capital needed and the resulting tax costs incurred when supplying catastrophe insurance/reinsurance using a partial equilibrium model that incorporates a specific loss distribution for US catastrophe losses. After consideration of insurer investment in tax-exempt securities, tax loss carry-back/forward provisions, and personal taxes, our results imply that the tax costs of equity finance alone have a substantial effect on the cost of supplying catastrophe reinsurance. These results help explain a variety of industry developments that reduce tax costs. Also, when coupled with non-tax costs of capital, these results help explain the limited scope of catastrophe insurance/reinsurance.