Tax Timing Options on Futures Contracts and the 1981 Economic Recovery Act

This study utilizes foreign currency futures contracts to evaluate the tax timing options created by the 1981 Economic Recovery Act. Our findings suggest that the act had an impact on contracts with less than six months to maturity and that the marginal trader in those contracts is a long-position holder. Similarly, the results suggest that the option of tax year selection for foreign currency futures in valuable.     

Commodity tax straddles and the valuation of domestic futures exchanges: An analysis of the 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act

The Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981 substantially altered the taxation of commodity tax straddles. Prior to 1981, commodity tax straddles were actively promoted and used to defer income, to convert ordinary income into capital gains, or to convert short-term into long-term capital gains. ERTA imposed a mark-tomarket rule of account settlement for the taxation of futures transactions. This study examines the impact of ERTA on the futures industry by utilizing futures exchange seat prices for all domestic futures exchanges. Futures exchange seats represent specialized capital assets whose value reflects the discounted present value of expected future economic rents derived from trading activity. The results indicate that ERTA produced a large decrease in the market valuation of futures exchange capital which was not recaptured in the ten months following the announcement.The financial support of the Columbia Futures Center was essential to the research reported here. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions, and Matthew Deno, Darrell Petter, and Shan Guo for valuable research assistance.     

山东省外资企业涉外债务融资现状、问题及对策研究

涉外债务融资是外资企业发展中的一种重要的融资方式。在当前境内外融资成本存在较大差异的情况下,对外资企业涉外债务融资的研究具有较强的现实意义。本文对近年来山东省外资企业涉外债务融资发展的特点、趋势进行了深入研究,并结合山东省实际对外资与外债之间的关系进行了分析,最后对山东省外资企业涉外债务融资发展提出了政策建议。     

中小企业债务融资产品定价影响因素分析

中小企业资产规模小、抗风险能力差,其融资面临较大的困难,极大地影响中小企业的发展。为了解决中小企业融资难的问题,本文对中小企业融资现状进行分析,结合中国目前中小企业融资的实际情况,提出了中小企业债务融资产品定价多元回归模型,分析了影响中小企业债券类产品定价的主要因素。     

Did the 1986 Tax Reform Act Affect Market Reactions to Stock Splits?: A Test of the Tax-Option Hypothesis

This paper tests the prediction of the tax-option hypothesis that the market impact of stock splits would be reduced by the 1986 Tax Reform Act which eliminated the difference between long- and short-term capital gains tax rates. The results show significant excess returns on stock split announcement and ex-days even after 1986. The announcement and ex-day excess returns are similar in different periods before and after the Act. Further, there is no significant relationship between announcement excess returns and increase in returns volatility following splits. These findings are inconsistent with the tax-option hypothesis.     

Using Financial Accounting Data to Examine the Effect of Foreign Operations Located in Tax Havens and Other Countries on U.S. Multinational Firms' Tax Rates

This paper investigates the effect tax havens and other foreign jurisdictions have on the income tax rates of multinational firms based in the United States. We develop a new regression methodology using financial accounting data to estimate the average worldwide, federal, and foreign tax rates on worldwide, federal, and foreign pretax book income for a large sample of U.S. firms with and without tax haven operations. We find that on average U.S. firms that disclosed material operations in at least one tax haven country have a worldwide tax burden on worldwide income that is approximately 1.5 percentage points lower than firms without operations in at least one tax haven country. Our results also show that U.S. firms face a 4.4% current federal tax rate on foreign income whether or not they have tax haven operations. Finally, we find that U.S. firms with operations in some tax haven countries have higher federal tax rates on foreign income than other firms. This result suggests that in some cases, tax haven operations may increase U.S. tax collections at the expense of foreign country tax collections.     

Debt, Leases, Taxes, and the Endogeneity of Corporate Tax Status

We provide evidence that corporate tax status is endogenous to financing decisions, which induces a spurious relation between measures of financial policy and many commonly used tax proxies. Using a forward-looking estimate of before-financing corporate marginal tax rates, we document a negative relation between operating leases and tax rates, and a positive relation between debt levels and tax rates. This is the first unambiguous evidence supporting the hypothesis that low tax rate firms lease more, and have lower debt levels, than high tax rate firms.     

持股金融机构对企业负债融资与债务结构的影响——基于上市公司的实证研究

本文通过对2007年至2011年我国A股615组配对公司的实证研究发现:持股金融机构不仅能够为企业带来更多的债务资金,包括短期债务资金和长期债务资金,而且有利于企业改变负债结构,即提高融资成本较低的短期债务融资比重,降低融资成本较高的长期债务。此外,相对于国有上市企业而言,民营上市公司持股金融机构更有利于改变其债务融资水平与债务结构。进一步区分金融机构类型后发现,持股金融机构对企业负债融资和债务结构的影响主要来自于持股非银行类金融机构。     

Tax Policy and Shareholder Wealth: Some Evidence from the Tax Reform Act of 1986

This paper presents additional evidence regarding the stock market reaction to the Tax Reform Act (TRA) of 1986. A prediction model of the change in the profitability index for thirty-three industry groups as a result of the TRA is developed. This prediction model is then tested by examining abnormal industry returns surrounding the announcement of the TRA. The authors find that the distribution of the abnormal returns is related to the distribution of the predicted changes in industry equity investment returns, which suggests that the stock market was efficient in the pricing of news related to the TRA of 1986.     

China's Abolition of the Agricultural Tax,Local Governments’ Responses and Economic Growth

When evaluating agricultural policy changes, much of the attention in the literature has been limited to agricultural productivity growth. This study demonstrates that, under a regionally decentralised authority system, the effect of China's abolition of the agricultural tax (AAT) in 2004–05 extended beyond the realm of agriculture. We find that, following the AAT reform, Chinese counties with higher reliance on agricultural taxation for budgetary revenue prior to the AAT reform experienced higher agricultural economic growth, as expected, but lower non‐agricultural economic growth in the short run. This growth‐inhibiting effect of the AAT reform on non‐agricultural production in the short run can be explained, to some extent, by the increased non‐agricultural taxation due to the insufficient funds that Chinese county governments received from the upper‐level governments following the AAT reform; the magnitude of this tax increase was associated with the degree to which each county relied on agricultural taxation for budgetary revenue prior to the reform. In addition, our results show that the AAT reform resulted in a high level of regional inequality in terms of non‐agricultural GDP per capita. In summary, our study shows that although the AAT reform succeeded in promoting agricultural production, such accomplishments were achieved at the cost of lower non‐agricultural output growth and higher regional inequality of non‐agricultural GDP per capita at the county level.     

Tax-Induced Trading: The Effect of the 1986 Tax Reform Act on Stock Market Activity

The end of favorable tax treatment for long-term capital gains caused investors to reassess traditional tax-induced trading strategies. This study compares trading behavior in December 1986 and January 1987 with previous years. Our results indicate that these tax code changes had a powerful effect on trading behavior. Relative trading volume was considerably higher in December 1986 for long-term winners but not significantly lower for long-term losers. Results also indicate altered trading patterns based on short-term gains in December 1986 and for long-term winners in January 1987.     

Interest Rates Fluctuations and the Advantage of Long-Term Debt Financing: A Note on the Effect of the Tax-Timing Option

When interest rates fluctuate, issuing long-term debt may implicitly generate a valuable tax-timing option. The holder of long-term debt has an optimal-trading taxtiming option to immediately realize capital losses if an increase in interest rates lowers the price of the bond below the original issue price. In contrast, if interest rates decrease and the bond price is greater than the original issue price, the holder would prefer to defer the realization of capital gains. This tax-timing option confers an advantage for issuing long-term debt. Our formal presentation also highlights how the tax-timing options of long-term debt may increase the debt capacity of the firm.     

Taxes and capital structure: evidence from firms' response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986

While the theoretical relation between taxes and capital structurehas been extensively analyzed, the empirical evidence on thisissue has thus far been inconclusive. One of the main difficultiesconfronting previous empirical studies of the cross-sectionalrelationship between taxes and leverage was the control of interveningvariables. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), which drasticallychanged the tax regime, provides a unique opportunity to assessthe interaction between taxes and leverage decisions in a controlledenvironment. We test the relationship between leverage and certaintax-related variables for a large sample of companies in theyears surrounding the enactment of the TRA. The results supportthe tax-based theories of capital structure. The findings indicatethat there exists a substitution effect between debt and nondebttax shields, and that both corporate and personal tax ratesaffect leverage decisions.     

金融政策竞争中性与民营企业融资纾困——来自突发公共卫生事件的准自然实验

本文以新冠肺炎疫情这一突发公共卫生事件为准自然实验,选择疫情前后我国债券市场数据,研究金融政策竞争中性原则实现情况及其途径。研究发现,相比国有企业,民营企业融资成本在疫情期间明显降低,金融政策的竞争中性得到进一步体现;那些为供应链上下游提供商业信用支持的民营企业,其融资成本降低幅度更大。同时,疫情期间一些应急性融资工具也向民营企业倾斜,更有利于降低民营企业的融资成本。进一步检验发现,供应链上下游受影响程度越严重、为上下游提供的商业信用期限越长,民营企业的融资成本降低幅度越大;疫情期间的金融政策并没有导致民营企业出现“脱实向虚”现象,反而降低了其金融化水平、提升了资金使用效率。研究结果显示,对民营企业不愿贷、不敢贷的现象并不等于金融政策存在非竞争中性,而是源于金融机构在执行层面的顾虑,我国应对突发公共卫生事件推出的金融政策有效缓解了信贷市场执行层面的这一顾虑。本文研究结论从金融政策竞争中性出发,为给民营企业营造公平竞争环境提供了有益启示。     

以地融资、地方债务与杠杆——地方融资平台的土地抵押分析

中国的高经济杠杆率和地方债务风险受到广泛关注,目前较少研究地方债务中的银行贷款,而地方融资平台的土地抵押贷款是其中重要的融资来源。本文首次利用爬虫工具获取了中国土地市场网上的土地抵押数据,并且搜集了地方融资平台名单,通过对比融资平台和非平台公司的土地抵押信息,发现地方融资平台在抵押金额和抵押率上,都显著高于非融资平台的土地抵押。我们进行了各种稳健性检验,通过采用PSM方法,降低样本选择偏误,发现结果是稳健的。此外,本文还探究了背后的政治经济学因素,发现中西部的抵押金额和抵押率显著高于东部;未到期的城投债存量越大,土地抵押越大;地方政府的经济增长压力越大,土地抵押也越大。这一定程度上意味着,融资平台获得的土地抵押较高,是出于地方政府强烈的举债动机和对信贷市场的干预,导致信贷资源的无效率配置。即使是土地抵押这种相对来说风险较小的融资渠道,依然可能蕴含着地方债务风险,这也为地方债务融资的抵押率高提供了证据。     

融资成本、融资替代与中国典当业的盈利波动——经验证据及理论解释

本文从企业融资成本的角度对金融危机后期以来中国典当业整体盈利状况的变化提供了可能的解释。利用实地调研数据和跨国文献资料,我们发现中国典当业具有迥异于其他经济体的特点,即中国的典当需求更多地来自于中小企业的投资需求,而非普通消费者的消费需求。基于此发现,我们借助一个企业融资行为模型,提出了对典当业盈利变化的一个解释:金融危机后的经济刺激政策从各方面降低了企业通过银行借贷的成本,而与此同时典当成本却具有刚性;作为合理的反应,企业自然偏向银行借贷而非典当融资;典当业因此大量失去企业的融资需求。而经济紧缩政策的作用恰好相反。宏观政策导向的变化和典当行业的盈利波动之间的关系印证了上述假说。     

Capital Structure and the Market for Corporate Control: The Defensive Role of Debt Financing

A capital structure theory based on corporate control considerations is presented. The optimal debt level balances a decrease in the probability of acquisition against a higher share of the synergy for the target's shareholders. This leads to the following implications: (i) the probability of firms becoming acquisition targets decreases with their leverage, (ii) acquirers' share of the total equity gain increases with targets' leverage, (iii) when acquisitions are initiated, targets' stock price, targets' debt value, and acquirers' firm value increase, and (iv) during the acquisition, target firms' stock price changes further; the expected change is zero and the variance decreases with targets' debt level.