Has the Canada-US trade agreement fostered price integration?

Has the Canada-US Trade Agreement Fostered Price Integration? — This paper assesses the Canada-US Trade Agreement (CUSTA) from the perspective of market integration. Using monthly data on producer price indices and the exchange rate of both countries for the 1974:1–1996:1 period, a Johansen procedure is used to test for a long-run equilibrium or cointegrated price system among the price series. In addition, to determine whether product markets are converging after the implementation of CUSTA, a Kaiman filter or time-varying parameter analysis is used. Empirical evidence supports the conclusion that CUSTA did not cause price integration or convergence, rather for the two markets convergence and integration were well established prior to CUSTA. The success of CUSTA appears to be in maintaining Canadian access to the US market in the face of rising US protectionism.     

Transfer Pricing: Strategies,Practices, and Tax Minimization

Using a survey of tax executives from multinational corporations, we document that some firms set their transfer pricing strategy to minimize tax payments, but more firms focus on tax compliance. We estimate that a firm focusing on minimizing taxes has a GAAP effective tax rate that is 6.6 percentage points lower and generates about $43 million more in tax savings, on average, than a firm focusing on tax compliance. Available COMPUSTAT data on sample firms confirm our survey‐based inferences. We also find that transfer pricing‐related tax savings are greater when higher foreign income, tax haven use, and R&D activities are combined with a tax minimization strategy. Finally, compliance‐focused firms report lower FIN 48 tax reserves than tax‐minimizing firms, consistent with the former group using less uncertain transfer pricing arrangements. Collectively, our study provides direct evidence that multinational firms have differing internal priorities for transfer pricing, and that these differences are strongly related to the taxes reported by these firms.     

Does the Accounting Profession Discipline Its Members Differently After Public Scrutiny?

Analyzing a sample of 13,917 US firm–years from 1991 to 2006, we find that more innovative firms demonstrate high corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance subsequent to a successful innovation. These high-CSR innovative firms enjoy significantly higher valuation post-innovation. These findings imply that firms with demonstrated potential growth opportunities, as evident from the number of registered patents and their citations, benefit by strategically investing more in CSR activities; that is, CSR investment entails ‘doing well by [strategically] doing good.’     

How Does Transfer Pricing Risk Affect Premiums in Cross‐Border Mergers and Acquisitions?

This study investigates how transfer pricing risk affects the premiums in cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Differences in the rigor of transfer pricing enforcement and the severity and clarity of rules across countries create differential risk of material costs for multinationals as they expand globally. We use 448 country‐level transfer pricing risk assessments by global transfer pricing partners and managers from two firms in 33 countries to develop a metric of country‐year transfer pricing risks. The resulting measure of transfer pricing risk is used to analyze the premiums of 3,103 cross‐border M&A from 2000 to 2012. We find that lower bid premiums are associated with higher transfer pricing risk in the target's country. We find the relation is stronger when expected future transfer pricing benefits are larger. Our results, consistent with the views of experts in the field, provide the first archival evidence that acquirers consider synergies created by future tax planning when estimating the value of a target.