Dynamics of the Market for Corporate Tax‐Avoidance Advice*

This paper addresses the debate over aggressive tax‐planning models and analyzes the role of tax consultants. It focuses on the dynamic interaction between innovation and imitation of aggressive tax‐planning products and governmental tax regulation, and it highlights the importance of the length of regulatory lag in comparison with the time it takes the tax‐consulting industry to imitate newly innovated tax‐avoidance products. It reveals an alignment of interests between highly innovative tax‐consulting firms and the governmental tax legislator/regulator. The conclusions are also relevant for the policy debate on mandatory disclosure rules about aggressive tax‐planning models.     

Automated topic modeling of tourist reviews: Does the Anna Karenina principle apply?

Automated content analysis of online travel reviews allows identification of topics of travelers' satisfaction, yet its domain is not well researched. We suggest that the Anna Karenina principle positing a greater variability of the factors leading to business failure as opposed to those leading to success can be applied to the domain of visitors’ reviews of historic and cultural attractions. The larger variability of issues in reviews of dissatisfied visitors is likely to result in limitations for automated topic modeling. We confirm our proposition using TripAdvisor reviews of the Terracotta Army museum in China, and validate the outcome with two additional sites. The study strongly suggests that application of unsupervised topic mining algorithms to negative reviews may be problematic and the results should be treated with caution. The main themes of dissatisfaction of visitors to all three sites are reported and practical implications for management of the attractions are discussed.     

纳税信用评级结果披露与研发投入

以纳税信用评级披露作为一个天然外生冲击,并基于2013—2016年1214家A股上市公司的微观数据构造准自然实验,使用双重差分法系统评估纳税信用评级结果披露对上市公司研发投入的影响。结果发现:纳税信用评级结果披露显著增加了上市公司的研发投入。基于PSM-DID方法的估计结果与上述结论无明显差异。稳健性检验也表明上述结论的正确性。机制检验表明,纳税信用评级结果披露通过降低企业的融资约束,进而促进企业增加研发投入。此外,分样本回归发现纳税信用评级结果披露只能对中小型企业和民营企业的研发投入产生促进作用。     

Environmental regulations in private and mixed duopolies: Taxes on emissions versus green R&D subsidies

In this article, we compare two kinds of environmental regulations—emissions taxes and green R&D subsidies—in private and mixed-duopoly markets in the presence of R&D spillovers. We show that a green R&D subsidy is better (worse) than an emissions tax when the green R&D is efficient (inefficient), irrespective of R&D spillovers, whereas the existence of a publicly owned firm encourages the government to adopt a subsidy policy. We also show that the optimal policy choice depends on R&D efficiency and spillovers. In particular, when green R&D is inefficient and the spillover rate is low (high), the government should choose an emissions tax and (not) privatize the state-owned firm. When green R&D is efficient, however, an R&D subsidy is better, but a privatization policy is not desirable for society, irrespective of spillovers.     

欧盟视阈下在线平台中个人数据的增值税处理

近年来,在线平台的迅猛发展推动了全球经济数字化加速转型,但同时也引发了包括增值税政策适用在内的诸多挑战.通过研究《欧盟增值税指令》和欧州法院的判例法,以及分析个人数据与在线平台运行之间的关系可以推断出,个人数据是在线平台提供访问服务构成的增值税应税范围内的供应,且与消费者是否向在线平台支付金钱形式的对价无关.在实践中,使用客观价值方法来确定在线服务供应的应税金额存在实际困难,而使用直接联系标准解决易货交易问题,会导致增值税税基在本质上得到扩张.因此,建议当前不要将在线平台访问服务的供应视为一项应税交易.此外,对于商家为获得消费者数据而向平台付款的情形,因其不符合直接联系标准,也不应被视为服务对价.     

A novel model to manage air cargo disruptions caused by global catastrophes such as Covid-19

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted the air cargo industry. This disruption has taken many directions, one of which is the demand imbalance which occurs due to the sudden change in the cargo capacity, as well as demand. Therefore, the random change leads to excessive demand in some routes (hot-selling routes), while some other routes suffer from a big shortage of demand (underutilized routes). Routes are substitutable when there are several adjacent airports in the Origin & Destination (O&D) market. In this market, demand imbalance between substitutable routes occurs because of the above reasons. To tackle the demand imbalance problem, a novel model is introduced to estimate the quantity combinations which maintains the balance between underutilized and hot-selling routes. This model is a variant of the classic Cournot model which captures different quantity scenarios in the form of the best response for each route compared to the other. We then cultivate the model by integrating the Puppet Cournot game with the quantity discount policy. The quantity discount policy is an incentive which motivates the freight forwarders to increase their orders in the underutilized routes. After conducting numerical experiments, the results reveal that the profit can increase up to 25% by using the quantity discount. However, the quantity discount model is only applicable when the profit increase in the hot-selling route is greater than the profit decrease in the underutilized route.     

Tax evasion by tax deferment: Sham litigation with an informal credit market

We show theoretically how tax evasion is facilitated by informal credit market through tax deferment. Our model is empirically based. Using sham litigation, tax evaders earn a higher rate of return than the stipulated penalty rate for tax evasion while the government loses tax revenue. We propose an upfront part–payment of the disputed amount of tax as a solution to the form of tax evasion we describe.     

土地市场扭曲如何影响制造业出口产品质量升级*——基于土地市场交易数据和制造业企业数据的实证分析

地方政府“以地谋发展”的策略在促进各地区制造业大规模集聚和出口贸易快速增长的同时，也势必会给企业出口产品质量带来深刻影响。本文综合利用中国土地市场网城市土地交易数据、中国工业企业数据、中国海关进出口产品数据和中国城市面板数据，实证检验了土地市场扭曲对企业出口产品质量升级的影响，并对其内在机制进行了探讨。研究发现：中国城市建设用地配置存在明显的工业偏向性，进而导致工业用地价格被低估，产生工业用地应得收益大于实际价格的反向扭曲问题。这种反向扭曲可通过抑制技术进步、阻碍产业结构高级化、弱化集聚经济效应等机制显著降低制造业企业出口产品质量。土地市场扭曲对企业出口产品质量升级的影响具有明显的异质性特征。具体而言，土地市场扭曲不利于一般贸易企业与混合贸易企业出口产品质量提升，但对加工贸易企业出口产品质量提升具有促进作用。土地市场扭曲对企业出口产品质量升级的抑制作用由东到西依次递增。土地市场扭曲不利于外资企业和国有企业出口产品质量提升，对集体企业及民营企业的影响不显著。