Political costs and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from sin firms

The products and services of firms operating in sin industries (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and firearms) run contrary to social norms and can produce significant negative externalities for society. As such, we expect that sin firms are at greater risk of incurring political costs in the form of additional regulation, higher excise taxes, or capital market intervention if they come under scrutiny for their income tax avoidance practices. Because of the nature of their products, regulators and policymakers are likely to face less pushback on new regulations or taxes on these firms. Sin firms start with a lower ability to influence the political process than firms in non-sin industries. Consequently, we hypothesize and find that sin firms exhibit less tax avoidance than non-sin firms, particularly through uncertain and more risky tax avoidance strategies. The negative relationship between the status of sin firms and tax avoidance is less pronounced in firms that accumulate political capital via intensive lobbying activities. Exploiting changes in partisan control of the Congress and White House, difference-in-differences tests show that firearm firms engage in less (more) tax avoidance when the Democrats (Republican) control both the Congress and White House. Overall, we conclude that political costs play an important role in corporate tax avoidance decisions.     

Asset Bubbles and the Cost of Economic Fluctuations

Lucas (1987, 2003) estimates that the cost of economic fluctuations is low; a social planner would pay no more than 0.1% of (permanent) consumption to eliminate all future business cycle fluctuations. The current paper extends Lucas’ calculations by studying the costs of fluctuations arising from asset bubbles. We estimate two classes of costs: consumption volatility due to asset bubbles in a representative agent economy and consumption volatility that arises because households have heterogeneous exposure to the bubble assets. We show that the magnitude of welfare costs is primarily driven by the existence of heterogeneity. Our benchmark calibration implies that the asset bubbles of the last decade generated a social welfare cost equal to a permanent 3% reduction in the level of national consumption. If assets are held proportionately across the population, these welfare costs fall by an order of magnitude. Our calculations are sensitive to the details of the calibration, including the degree of balance sheet and trading heterogeneity, the coefficient of relative risk aversion, and the magnitude of the asset bubble. Our preferred specifications generate welfare costs ranging from 1% to 10% of (permanent) national consumption.     

Optimal Monetary Policy in a Model with Agency Costs

This paper integrates a fully explicit model of agency costs into an otherwise standard Dynamic New Keynesian model in a particularly transparent way. A principal result is the characterization of agency costs as endogenous markup shocks in an output‐gap version of the Phillips curve. The model's utility‐based welfare criterion is derived explicitly and includes a measure of credit market tightness that we interpret as a risk premium. The paper also fully characterizes optimal monetary policy and provides conditions under which zero inflation is the optimal policy. Finally, optimal policy can be expressed as an inflation targeting criterion that (depending upon parameter values) can be either forward or backward looking.     

Accounting manipulations and political costs: Tooth & Co Ltd, 1910–1965

Positive accounting theory posits that political costs influence accounting choices by large firms. Most studies rely on cross‐sectional analyses of large samples using coarse data. We employ rich archival data to analyse the profit measurement and disclosure practices of Tooth & Co, a large Australian brewing company, from 1910 to 1965. This period provides considerable variation in scope and incentives to manipulate reported profit. Reporting discretion changed significantly from early voluntary disclosure through to the extensive scheduled disclosure requirements of the Companies Act 1961. Varying incentives include changes in excise duties levied on beer production, and dramatic company growth and market dominance resulting from takeovers of competitors and vertical integration. We examine the pattern of reported profit in relation to internal records and the pattern of accruals. We find that Tooth's profit‐smoothing practices and understatements were perceived by management as important in justifying dividend policy, while systematic understatements of reported profit were used to avoid potential political costs associated with high profitability and market dominance. The most significant relative increases in profit understatement are shown to occur where dividend policy and political cost motivations coincide.     

Labor Selection,Turnover Costs,and Optimal Monetary Policy

We study optimal monetary policy and welfare properties of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with a labor selection process, labor turnover costs, and Nash bargained wages. We show that our model implies inefficiencies that cannot be offset in a standard wage bargaining regime. We also show that the inefficiencies rise with the magnitude of firing costs. As a result, in the optimal Ramsey plan, the optimal inflation volatility deviates from zero and is an increasing function of firing costs.     

The Costs of Restrictive Trade Policies in the Presence of Factor Tax Distortions

This paper uses a numerical general equilibrium model to examine the quantitative importance of pre-existing factor tax distortions for the welfare effects of tariffs and import quotas. The presence of pre-existing taxes can greatly raise the costs of these policies, possibly by over several hundred percent. For a tariff much of this extra cost can be offset if tariff revenues are used to reduce distortionary taxes. Hence there can be a large cost discrepancy between tariffs and quotas. The optimal tariff for a country with market power in trade can be reduced to zero, unless revenues finance cuts in distortionary taxes.     

The Commercialization of Government's Departmental Accounting (AAS 29): Quasi Rents and Public Welfare

In the Australian public sector. departmental administrative reform is intent on producing lean. efficient. commercially orientated government entities. An accounting regulatory response is AAS 29. Financial Reporting for Governtizetzt Departments. which requires all government departments as reporting entities to adopt in principle much of the whole corpus of private sector accounting standards and statements including. importantly, current cost accounting. This paper explores the proposition that the commercialization of departmental accounting through AAS 29 or similar pronouncements is directly associated with a significant reduction in social and public welfare accountability. Accounting processes are powerful. value-laden agents of social change. Benston (1980) states that 'benefits (net of costs) of accounting standards to society' cannot be measured but can be specified for individuals. Here. accounting outcomes are identified to be the residuals of economic policies to eliminate quasi rents in government. Standardization in AAS 29 rests on the assumption that rights and obligations being equities of generations of participants can be periodically measured as A -L = E at current factor prices. This economic notion lacks cultural heritage in financial disclosure of continuing equities in government and may, for any generation of consumers. induce an excess of social costs over social benefits for the accounting standardization process under prevailing managerialist philosophies.     

Alcohol taxes,tax revenues and the Single European Market

This paper addresses the issue of whether tax revenue from alcohol lost through cross-border shopping could be recouped by cutting excise duties. This in turn depends on the elasticity of demand for alcohol. We use data from the Family Expenditure Survey 1978–96 to estimate own- and cross-price elasticities of demand for beer, wine and spirits before and after completion of the Single Market. We find no evidence of a significant change in elasticities after the Single Market. The tax rates on beer and wine are currently below their revenue-maximising rates, implying that a cut in the duty rate on beer or wine would lead to a decrease in indirect tax revenue from alcohol. We cannot reject that the current tax rate on spirits is at the revenue-maximising rate, implying that further increases in the duty on spirits are likely to cause indirect tax revenue to fall.     

Compliance Costs of Corporate Income Taxation in Singapore

This study is the second in a series of studies investigating tax compliance costs incurred by public-listed companies. We found evidence of a size effect which is a predominant finding of similar studies. The size effect was more pronounced when absolute measures of costs were used than when a relative measure, cost/sales turnover, was used. Additional evidence was found of limited success relating to the IRAS's moves to simplify the tax system. Specifically, only large companies with sales turnover exceeding $500m benefited and considerably reduced their overall compliance costs. Most of the decrease was a result of the computational component of compliance costs. This resulted in the gap in absolute costs narrowing between Group 3 and any of the other categories of companies. There was also greater reliance on external professionals, the smaller the company. Views elicited indicate that more could be done to increase accessibility to IRAS publications for Group 1 and Group 2 companies.     

The Distributional Effects of Indirect Tax Changes in Italy

This paper evaluatesthe distributional and welfare effects of two recent changesof Value Added Tax (VAT) and excise taxes in Italy applying andcomparing two related and complementary methods of analysis:the first based on the distributional characteristics of Feldstein(1972) and recently applied by Newbery (1995); the second basedon the theory of marginal dominance developed by Mayshar andYitzhaki (1996). The paper finds no evidence that the reformshave redistributed purchasing power among households. But themost striking result is that a simpler two-rate VAT structure,set according to the European directives on VAT coordination,could have replaced the present system producing the same revenueand increasing welfare. This last result provides a clear instancein which reducing the number of VAT rates can be welcome evenin the presence of distributional concerns.     

Trend inflation, wage and price rigidities, and productivity growth

What are the steady-state implications of inflation in a general-equilibrium model with real per capita output growth and staggered nominal price and wage contracts? Surprisingly, a benchmark calibration implies an optimal inflation rate of -1.9 percent. The analysis also shows that trend inflation has important effects on the economy when combined with nominal contracts and real output growth. Steady-state output and welfare losses are quantitatively important even for low values of trend inflation. Further, nominal wage contracting is found to be quantitatively more important than nominal price contracting in generating the results. This conclusion does not arise from price dispersion per se, but from an effect of nominal output growth on the optimal markup of monopolistically competitive labour suppliers. Finally, accounting for productivity growth is found to be important for calculating the welfare costs of inflation. Indeed, the presence of 2 percent productivity growth increases the welfare costs of inflation in the benchmark specification by a factor of four relative to the no-growth case.     

Residential Construction Costs and the Supply of New Housing: Endogeneity and Bias in Construction Cost Indexes

Change in the level of residential construction affects macroeconomic conditions and is an important determinant of movements in house prices. Theory teaches us that increases in the cost of construction should reduce the supply of new housing. Yet empirical research has failed to find a consistent relationship between these costs and housing starts. This article introduces an entirely new set of micro-data on housing construction costs to study this issue. We develop quality-controlled, hedonic construction cost series from these data. Using this series, we estimate housing supply and construction cost functions for new single-family residences. This research demonstrates that bias in the commercial cost indexes used in existing housing supply studies is a likely cause of their poor performance in existing estimates of the supply of new single-family housing. The bias appears to be caused by an incorrect measure of labor costs and a failure to address the endogeneity of construction costs and construction activity. In contrast, starts regressions using the hedonic cost series generate much more sensible results. We find that housing starts are quite cost elastic; construction costs are endogenous in the new housing supply function, and the cost shares of material and labor in the structure of new residences are approximately 65 and 35%, respectively.     

中国经济周期波动的福利成本研究——基于小概率“严重衰退”事件的视角

本文在Lucas模型基础上,引入存在严重衰退状态的消费增长过程,重新估算中国经济周期的福利成本,修正了Lucas论断。通过本文模型的计算,我们得出:(1)应用存在严重衰退状态的福利成本模型估算的中国经济波动的福利成本远远高于Lucas模型估算的结果。在合理的参数范围内,前者一般是后者的10倍左右。因此,对于中国经济而言,旨在防止严重衰退状态发生的宏观稳定政策的福利收益相当大。(2)对于中国经济而言,降低严重衰退状态发生的概率(从0.017降低到0.003)所获得的福利收益大约是Lucas模型结果的3～4倍。这表明,中国宏观稳定政策的收益主要来源于降低严重衰退状态的发生概率,而不是减少通常意义上的经济波动。(3)在相对风险规避系数取值范围内(γ小于6),中国经济波动的福利成本与美国经济波动的福利成本相当接近。这从某种程度上说明了存在严重衰退状态的福利成本模型适用于不同的经济体。     

Markups and the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles: A Reappraisal

Gali, Gertler, and Lopez‐Salido (2007) recently show quantitatively that fluctuations in the efficiency of resource allocation do not generate sizable welfare costs. In their economy, which is distorted by monopolistic competition in the steady state, we show that they underestimate the welfare cost of these fluctuations by ignoring the negative effect of aggregate volatility on average consumption and leisure. As monopolistic suppliers, both firms and workers aim to preserve their expected markups; the interaction between aggregate fluctuations and price‐setting behavior results in average consumption and employment levels that are lower than their counterparts in the flexible‐price economy. This level effect increases the efficiency cost of business cycles. It is all the more sizable with the degree of inefficiency in the steady state, lower labor–supply elasticities, and when prices instead of wages are rigid.     

住房、便利设施与异质性劳动力流动——微观机制与福利效应

通过构建住房和便利设施供给内生的空间均衡模型,运用人口调查数据和反事实检验方法,本文考察了住房成本和便利设施水平变动影响异质性劳动力流动的微观机制及其福利效应。研究发现:(1)住房成本随着异质性劳动力向城市集聚而显著上涨,但城市便利设施水平的提高主要得益于高技能劳动力就业规模的扩大,低技能劳动力就业增长的贡献并不显著;(2)住房成本上涨与便利设施水平提高进一步推动了异质性劳动力在城市间的流动与配置,反映在城市体系上,使得城市的规模分布分别呈现出扁平化和向大城市极化的特征;(3)就福利效应而言,住房成本上涨压缩了工资溢价带来的福利水平提升空间,但一定程度上缓解了高、低技能劳动力福利差距的扩大趋势;更高水平的便利设施促进了福利水平的提升,但也加剧了高、低技能劳动力之间的福利不平等状况。城市规模对上述福利效应存在放大机制。     

The Costs of Implementing Regulatory Changes: The Truth in Savings Act

Although the cost of banking regulation has been a controversial issue for many years, little empirical evidence is available. This study provides new evidence on the effect of the amount of required changes on start-up compliance costs, using data from a survey of the costs of implementing the Truth in Savings Act. The finding, that start-up compliance costs were insensitive to the extent of changes required to implement the regulation, has important implications for regulatory policy. It suggests that a general requirement to alter an infrequent practice may impose nonnegligible costs on all banks, not only those banks that must make substantive changes in their practices. This finding argues against a policy of making frequent minor revisions in regulations. Instead, a policy of delaying revisions until some number have been accumulated and then making infrequent major revisions of regulations may reduce implementation costs by allowing banks to exploit economies of changing practices.     

A change in market microstructure: the switch to electronic screen trading on the New Zealand stock exchange

The New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE) switched from open outcry trading to an electronic screen trading system on June 24, 1991. The change was made by the members of the exchange to improve the trading system and to reduce costs. This paper investigates empirically whether improvement was achieved through a reduction in transaction costs. The tests and results focus on order-flow migration to the exchange from alternative execution locations and changes in bid-ask spreads. On balance, we conclude that transaction costs have declined.     

Alkoholabhängigkeit und Public Health — Soziale und arbeitsmedizinische Aspekte

On the basis of epidemiological estimations the number of alcohol addicts in Germany is estimated at 1.6 million, the number of patients abusing alcoholic drinks at 2.7 million. The diagnosis is often difficult due to aspersion and adulteration tendencies by the affected persons. Particularly psychosocial impairments are crucial for the diagnosis besides an increased quantity of drinking and alcohol related somatic and neurological consequential damages. Different questionnaire tests and clinical-chemical parameters such as GGT and CDT can relieve the diagnosis. Impairments of social environment and industrial world are substantial. The overall consequential damages by alcoholism are estimated at 20 billion € per annum. In this regard indirect costs of alcohol associated diseases are higher than direct costs. Alcohol addiction is often diagnosed at a rather late stage. However, at the beginning of an adequate therapy prognoses are often better than expected. Most of the withdrawal therapies are still conducted at a hospital. Abstinence rates of more than 40 % seem to be achievable. Furthermore a short survey of success rates of ambulant and stationary therapies is given.     

Temporary immigration visas

This paper deals with recent proposals concerning temporary immigration visas as a means to combat the problem of illegal immigration. We set up a simple two-period model of international migration between a poor South and a rich North with temporary visas issued for one period. Because of capital market imperfections, immigrants from the South face additional capital costs when financing the visa fee. In this model, we find that temporary visas can improve welfare in the North if capital costs of the immigrants are sufficiently low. For high capital costs, however, a welfare reduction cannot be ruled out. We extend the model to the case of heterogeneous immigrants and asymmetric information. In this setting, we show that the government in the North may have an incentive to issue temporary visas for those with low capital costs and to tolerate illegal immigration of the others.     

Dividend Covenants and Income Measurement

This paper constructs a theory of dividend restrictions in incomplete markets in an attempt to better understand the role of accounting constructions in optimal dividend restrictions. An entrepreneur, through his company, borrows money from a lender, and repays the debt from a stream of stochastic cash flows. Dividend restrictions are used to balance insolvency costs against the costs of accumulating surplus cash. Of particular concern is whether optimal dividend restrictions can be characterized as defining an accounting-earnings-based reservoir available for dividends, and whether earnings calculated for this purpose exhibit conservatism.