Is corporate tax avoidance associated with investment efficiency?

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between investment efficiency and corporate tax avoidance. Using a large sample of U.S. firms over the period 1993–2016, we show that there is a positive association between corporate tax avoidance activities and investment inefficiency. Moreover, we find that the association is mediated by financial statement readability, financial statement comparability and product market competition. Our results are robust to alternative measures of both tax avoidance and investment inefficiency. Propensity score matching (PSM), difference-in-difference (DID), and two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression analyses confirm our results and mitigate any potential endogeneity issues that might result from the effect of omitted variables, reverse causality or model misspecification.     

外资企业避税与反避税:税收法律制度的完善与调整

目前 ,外资企业避税的方式呈现出以下新特征 :通过关联企业间提供中介服务如咨询费、租赁费、逆向避税等方式进行。对这种更为隐蔽的避税行为 ,我国的税收法律制度显得无奈与尴尬 ,缺乏反避税的正式约束规则。必须完善反避税的相关法律制度 ,制订统一的反避税条款 ,建立反避税机构体系。     

Carbon performance and corporate financial performance: The moderating role of consumer awareness of corporate social responsibility

The paper detects the association between carbon performance (CP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) and the moderating role of consumer awareness (CA) of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that CP has consistent positive impacts on CFP in the short and long term, whereas CA has opposite moderating effects on CFP. These results indicate that companies should increase corporate value by improving CP. In addition, improving CA of CSR is an effective way to promote CFP.     

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

Organizational studies have widely debated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Some papers have dealt with managerial satisfaction and businesses' performance adopting agency theory to interpret the results. However, no studies have yet considered the relationship between the satisfaction levels of an environmental manager and corporate environmental performance. This paper thus analyses the role played by the environmental manager's satisfaction in enhancing corporate environmental performance and reputation. The paper uses data from a survey of 412 Eco Management and Audit Scheme registered organizations. The results show a positive relationship between managerial satisfaction and environmental performance, whereas no such positive relationship was found when considering eco‐innovation performance. In addition, the environmental manager's satisfaction has a positive and indirect influence on the corporate environmental reputation. These results contribute to the literature on agency theory and aim to extend the debate between job satisfaction and job performance to the sustainable business field.     

The UK corporate tax reform and business investment decisions

The 1984 Finance Act made fundamental changes to the UK corporate tax system. Evidence from a detailed study of sixty past investment decisions is used to assess the likely effects of the shift from a high-tax, high-allowance system to a system of low taxes and allowances. This suggests that 100% allowances have had little impact on the scale of investment since 1979, reflecting limited taxable capacity and the importance of market considerations in investment decisions. Timing effects were more common, especially among small firms sampled. The post-tax cost of capital will fall for some firms but few appeared to use strict cost of capital criteria in assessing investments.     

The moderating effect of the technological level of industry on the relationship between innovation and corporate reputation

Corporate reputation is one of the principal intangible assets a firm possesses. The entrepreneurial, innovative nature of the firm has been recognized as one of the antecedents of corporate reputation. However, specialist literature has paid scant attention to the relative importance of an entrepreneurial nature as an element that helps to improve corporate reputation in comparison with other antecedents such as product quality. Even less is known about exactly how this antecedent influences corporate reputation among different stakeholders. Little is also known about possible variations in how this antecedent is perceived by different industries. Thus, with a view to contributing to knowledge on how corporate reputation is formed, derived from the innovative nature of the firm, this article attempts to analyze how the environment affects the causal relation between the entrepreneurial, innovative nature of the firm and its corporate reputation. We particularly analyze the environment according to its technological level, distinguishing between three types of industry: high tech, medium tech, and low tech, using a sample of 308 US firms and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. The empirical test provided some unexpected and interesting results.     

Enhancing managerial incentives and value creation: Evidence from corporate spinoffs

We study corporate spinoffs with changes in CEO compensation to examine how spinoffs affect managerial incentive compensation and whether the changes in managerial compensation can explain the value enhancement and operating performance improvements that occur following spinoffs. Analyzing a sample of 124 non-taxable spinoffs during 1990–1997, we find that changes in incentive compensation are a significant motive for spinoffs. Changes in managerial incentives alone are consistent with the post-spinoff changes in operating performance, while changes in business focus are not. Spinoffs that are not accompanied by enhanced pay-performance relationship do not improve operating performance even with increased business focus. (JELG34, J33)     

Corporate criminal law and organization incentives: a managerial perspective

Corporate criminal liability puts a serious challenge to the economic theory of enforcement. Are corporate crimes different from other crimes? Are these crimes best deterred by punishing individuals, punishing corporations, or both? What is optimal structure of sanctions? Should corporate liability be criminal or civil? This paper has two major contributions to the literature. First, it provides a common analytical framework to most results presented and largely discussed in the field. Second, by making use of the framework, we provide new insights into how corporations should be punished for the offenses committed by their employees. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancing corporate sustainable development: Proactive environmental strategy,stakeholder pressure and the moderating effect of firm size

The article evaluates the influence of pressure of 10 distinct types of stakeholders on the adoption of environmental strategies, with the special focus on the proactive environmental strategy (PES). The moderation effect of the company size on this relationship is investigated in depth. The existence of the relationship between stakeholder pressure and environmental strategies has been explored by numerous studies. The study adds significantly to this ongoing discussion as the moderation effect of the company size was explored scarcely so far in the literature. The results from the multinomial logistic regression models confirmed almost unanimously the effect of stakeholder pressure and the presence of the moderation. Positive, but nonlinear, direct and moderated effect of pressures of regulators, competitors, clients, NGOs, media, shareholders and employees on PES was discovered. In case of suppliers, consumers and top management, the pressure–PES relation was more complex. Also, large companies seem to be more resilient to pressures than the smaller ones when adopting PES.     

Corporate income tax and futures hedging

Our research is motivated by the Corn Products vs. Arkansas Best Supreme Court decisions that pitched the controversy of the tax treatment of gains and losses from futures hedging. The use of futures contracts as risk management tools depends on the tax code. In this paper we address complications in the current tax code that allow for asymmetric offset: Ordinary losses can be applied against capital gains; however, capital losses cannot by applied against ordinary gains. Also we consider the issue of tax loss carryover. We investigate the optimal hedge ratios under these scenarios analytically where possible, and numerically where necessary. Michael Metz is an independent commodity market consultant.     

The impact of supplier dependence on suppliers' CSR: The moderating role of industrial dynamism and corporate transparency

To improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the supply chain, focal buyers may use supplier dependence to influence the supplier's resource strategy to promote the supplier's CSR initiatives. Thus, supplier dependence is particularly critical to the supplier's CSR, especially for Chinese suppliers with resource constraints. However, there is limited understanding and research on the degree to which a supplier depends on major buyers for the supplier's CSR from the supplier's perspective. Based on a sample of 284 Chinese listed companies, this study analyses the relationship between supplier dependence and suppliers' CSR through the lens of resource dependence theory (RDT). In addition, we investigate the moderating roles of industrial dynamism and corporate transparency in the relationship between supplier dependence and suppliers' CSR. The results indicate that supplier dependence has a negative impact on the Chinese supplier's CSR performance. Meanwhile, the negative impact of supplier dependence is mitigated for the supplier's more volatile industrial context, while improving corporate transparency enhances the negative impact of supplier dependence. This study verifies the applicability of RDT for the analysis of CSR in the supply chain in emerging markets such as China. Moreover, the study further extends research on the role of buyer-supplier relationships in CSR in the supply chain by extending the research perspective to the supplier side and adding the external and internal uncertainty of the supplier to the theoretical framework for analysis. We also provide managerial implications for implementing Chinese suppliers' CSR from the buyer's and supplier's perspectives.     

Social trust environment and firm tax avoidance: Evidence from China

We examine the impact of the social trust environment in which a firm is located on its tax avoidance in China and paying attention to the moderating effect of corporate governance and state-ownership. Drawing from theoretical and empirical work on firm tax avoidance and manager–shareholder agency conflict, we hypothesize that social trust can lower firm tax avoidance. It is because a high social trust environment can reduce agency conflict so that tax avoidance is less. Our findings are consistent with our hypothesis, and robust to a battery of robustness tests. Furthermore, we document that the association between social trust and firm tax avoidance is more pronounced for firms with weak corporate governance and state-owned. Moreover, we find that firms in more trustworthy provinces present less general and administrative expenses and higher asset turnover, corroborating our theoretical foundations with respect to agency cost in our hypothesis. Our findings suggest that social trust and its interactions with corporate governance and state ownership are important internal and external determinants on the variations in tax avoidance.     

Corporate debt,corporate taxes and leasing

This paper utilizes recent developments in capital lease modeling to develop a new specification of the relationship between the expected returns to debt, levered equity and unlevered equity for firms that lease a portion of their assets. Accounting explicitly for leases is shown to be important when the difference between equity and debt risk is large, when the risk of leased assets differs from the firm's other assets and when salvage value is a significant portion of the capitalized value of the firm's lease obligations. This new specification yields improved estimates of firms' unlevered cost of capital, thereby facilitating improved capital budgeting decisions in those that lease a significant portion of their assets.     

The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual employee voice: The moderating role of conflict avoidance

This article examines the role of national culture, measured by conflict avoidance, on the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and individual employee voice. Using data collected from automotive industry employees in the United States and Korea, the findings show that conflict avoidance is negatively related to employee voice and also moderates the relationship between LMX and employee voice in the Korean sample. In particular, the relationship between LMX and voice becomes less positive when conflict avoidance is high. On the other hand, conflict avoidance does not have a direct effect on employee voice as well as an interactive effect with LMX on employee voice in the U.S. sample. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of the national culture in the comparative study of employee voice.     

Corporate social responsibility and corporate performance: a quantile regression approach

This paper investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility activities on corporate performance. In view of the inconsistent empirical findings in the literature, and the limitations of least squares regressions, we adopt a quantile regression method to fill this gap in the literature. An important finding is that the sensitivity of a company’s performance to its engagement in corporate social responsibility activities does not vary with the quantile location of the firm’s performance level, and the engagement in corporate social responsibility activities has a significant positive relation with corporate performance across all quantiles. This study argues that undertaking corporate social responsibility leads to greater financial returns than the related costs. Therefore, this study concludes that engaging in corporate social responsibility is beneficial for firms, and thus worth implementing.     

Corporate social responsibility and public procurement: How supplying government affects managerial orientations

How does government drive the corporate social responsibility of firms that supply it with goods and services? This paper reviews relevant theory and practice to describe ways in which public procurement shapes corporate social responsibility, and it builds upon theory to develop testable propositions to describe these influences. Using the case of U.S. defense procurement, statistical analysis indicates a significant relationship between the extent to which firms engage in defense procurement and the corporate social responsibility orientations of their managers. The findings have application both for social responsibility theory and for public procurement policy and practice.     

The interaction of corporate dividend policy and capital structure decisions under differential tax regimes

We develop a valuation model that integrates corporate capital structure and dividend payout policies. The resulting “extended” Miller (J Financ 32:261–297, 1977) model explicitly incorporates the different tax rates on corporate income, personal interest, dividends, and capital gains. We apply the model to ten different U.S. tax regimes since 1979 and generate several testable predictions. When the dividend tax rate exceeds the capital gains tax rate, dividend payout can partially offset value-enhancing effects of leverage. When the two rates are close, dividend payout loses its moderating influence. Using the S&P 1500 universe, we obtain empirical results that are consistent with the model’s predictions.