CEO Inside Debt Incentives and Corporate Tax Sheltering

This paper examines the relation between CEO inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and corporate tax sheltering. Because inside debt holdings are generally unsecured and unfunded liabilities of the firm, CEOs are exposed to risk similar to that faced by outside creditors. As such, theory (Jensen and Meckling [1976]) suggests that inside debt holdings negatively impact CEO risk‐appetite. To the extent that corporate tax shelters are likely to result in high cash flow volatility in the future, we expect that inside debt holdings will curb CEOs from engaging in tax shelter transactions. Consistent with the prediction, we document a negative association between CEO inside debt holdings and tax sheltering. Additional analyses suggest that the effect of inside debt on tax sheltering is more (less) pronounced in the presence of high default risk and liquidity threats (cash‐out options in pension packages). Overall, our results highlight the importance of investigating the implication of CEO debt‐like compensation for corporate tax policies.     

“供给侧改革”中的减税政策思考

供给侧改革是我国经济改革领域的热点和焦点话题,减税是供给侧结构性改革的重要举措之一。通过梳理不同学派学者的各项研究,并基于供给学派的减税理论,分析我国供给侧结构性改革中的税制优化问题,提出在当前减税背景下各税类的改革方向,从而降低企业的税收负担,构建最优税制结构体系。     

税法与会计规范的融合性思考

税法和会计规范有其各自的目标、原则、业务规范,两者之间本质性的差异应该长期存在并且可以合理地扩大,而两者之间形式上或时间上的差异应该缩小并且最终消除。税务会计是两者之间的有效沟通桥梁。     

“双碳”目标下碳交易与制造业绿色全要素生产率——基于异质性技术创新模式的机制检验

碳交易是推动制造业绿色发展,实现“双碳”目标的重要市场化工具,交易价格和市场规模能够反映碳交易实施状况,是影响制造业绿色全要素生产率的重要因素。从碳交易价格和市场规模切入,基于2008—2020年中国内地30个省份面板数据,构建连续型双重差分模型评估碳交易对制造业绿色全要素生产率的作用效果,并考察异质性技术创新模式的传导路径。结果表明,提高碳交易价格和扩大市场规模均能显著提升制造业绿色全要素生产率。机制检验表明,碳交易价格和市场规模能够推动自主创新、减少技术改造投入,进而影响制造业绿色全要素生产率,而技术引进并非有效路径。进一步研究发现,自主创新对技术改造存在挤出效应。研究结论对完善碳交易制度顶层设计、精准制定技术创新配套政策具有重要启示意义。     

Can China reduce the carbon emissions of its manufacturing exports by moving up the global value chain?

This study analyses whether embedding in the global value chain has an impact on the carbon emissions of China’s exports. We develop a carbon decomposition model and use panel data for 14 manufacturing industries in China from 1995 to 2009 to empirically analyse the impact of China’s exports on carbon emissions. Our results show that the GVC effect on China’s carbon emissions embodied in manufacturing exports outweighs the scale, composition and technique effects.     

个人所得税改革对居民消费的效应评价与完善路径

当前我国居民消费不足的最主要原因在于居民收入水平不高、国民收入分配失衡,所以2018年个人所得税改革的重点是提高费用扣除标准、调整税率结构,降低纳税人负担,增加纳税人可支配收入,提高居民消费水平。要进一步促进居民消费,个人所得税有必要继续减税,同时进一步调节收入分配差距,使收入分配更加公平。具体对策包括:将专项附加扣除中的子女教育支出范围扩大为子女养育支出,增加家庭合并征税模式,费用扣除标准指数化动态调整,进一步优化税率结构,建立负所得税制度。     

中国失业保险制度改革方向:纳入社会救助——基于历史背景与功能定位的分析

失业保险在建立和长期发展过程中,具有缓和劳资矛盾、天然双向平滑经济波动、提供失业保障和平滑个人收入的基本功能。但随着各国劳动保护及福利制度的发展,失业保险在政治和经济方面的功能减弱,且其失业收入损失补偿功能常常引发失业陷阱,于是各国进行了以促进积极就业为导向的改革。中国失业保险制度曾经为经济体制转型起到了“减震器”的作用。随着劳动保护和社会保障制度的发展和政府就业政策的完善,在二元就业结构、户籍制度、公共部门人力资源管理制度及政府承担就业促进任务的影响下,我国失业保险的政治、经济、失业人口收入补偿、就业促进功能未能有效发挥。在比较了若干改革方案后,本文认为,取消失业保险并将其功能并入社会救助体系是新时代背景下我国失业保险制度的最优改革路径。     

Fiscal policy,government debt,and economic growth in the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution

This article presents the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution that sets a budget deficit ratio as an indicator of fiscal policy and examines the short- and long-run effects of an increase in budget deficits and a rise in income tax rates on the economy. The key short-run outcomes are as follows. First, expanded budget deficits have a positive effect on the rate of capacity utilization. Second, the tax rate for wage income does not affect the rate of capacity utilization, whereas the tax rate for capital income has a favorable impact on it. This result implies that raising the tax rate for capital income can be an important policy instrument for stimulating the economy. Third, we find that the economy exhibits a wage-led aggregate demand in the short run. The main long-run results are as follows. First, the effect of expanded budget deficits on the growth rate is ambiguous, since a higher debt burden negatively influences the rate of capacity utilization and hence economic growth, despite the increase in demand caused by government borrowing. A higher budget deficit ratio thus raises the growth rate only if a certain condition is satisfied. Second, the tax rate for capital income has a positive impact on the growth rate. Third, the economy shows a wage-led growth in the long run.     

The Elasticity of Taxable Income: The Case of South Africa

A key tax policy parameter that has received much attention in the international literature, but about which there is substantial uncertainty, is the overall elasticity of taxable income. The size of this parameter is central to the formulation of tax and transfer policy, as well as for the study of the welfare implications of tax decisions. This paper uses a panel of individual tax returns for the period 2009–2013 and the phenomenon of “bracket creep” to construct instrumental variable estimates of the sensitivity of income to changes in tax rates. Estimates suggest that the overall elasticity of taxable income is approximately 0.3, while that of broad income is significantly lower. The overall response is primarily driven by the elastic response of taxable income for high‐income earners, who have an elasticity of closer to 0.4. Using the elasticity estimates within an optimal tax framework, it is determined that the optimal marginal tax rate for the top 10% of income earners is broadly in line with the current income tax schedule. However, results also suggest that there is little scope for raising marginal rates on high‐income earners further without inducing a negative revenue response.     

Taxes and firm investment

We investigate the firm-level investment response to unanticipated narrative shocks to average personal and corporate tax rates using a universal micro dataset of publicly-traded U.S. firms for the post-1976 period. Using local projections, we show that: (i) corporate tax shocks have significant effects on investment while personal tax shocks do not; (ii) corporate income tax responses are negative overall, and this result is driven by smaller firms who face larger borrowing constraints, especially when the accompanying monetary policy is contractionary or output gap is slack; (iii) there is some evidence of positive personal income tax responses during monetary contractions by dividend-paying firms, which is consistent with the recent literature.