The role of infrastructure investment and factor productivity in international tax competition

In this paper we use data from 30 developed economies from 1999 to 2014 to analyse the importance of infrastructure investments and factor productivity for explaining international capital tax competition. Our results indicate the existence of intensive tax competition in effective average corporate taxation during this period. It is also suggested that non-tax variables of third countries affect a country's corporate tax policy. Countries whose direct competitors have better infrastructures or are more productive compensate with lower capital taxation. In this way, their infrastructure investment and productivity-enhancing policies are used as strategic substitutes for capital taxation. With regard to the characteristics of closest competitors, we find that corporate tax competition is fiercer among countries that are characterized by similar infrastructure investments and geographical proximity.     

Income shifting, investment, and tax competition: theory and evidence from provincial taxation in Canada

We study corporate income taxation when firms operating in multiple jurisdictions can shift income using tax planning strategies. Because income of corporate groups is not consolidated for tax purposes in Canada, firms may use financial techniques, such as lending among affiliates, to reduce subnational corporate taxes. A simple theoretical model shows how income shifting affects real investment, government revenues, and tax base elasticities, depending on whether firms must allocate income to provinces or not. We then analyze data from administrative tax records to compare the behavior of corporate subsidiaries that may engage in income shifting to comparable firms that must use the statutory allocation formula to determine their taxable income in each province. The evidence suggests that income shifting has pronounced effects on provincial tax bases. According to our preferred estimate, the elasticity of taxable income with respect to tax rates for “income shifting” firms is 4.9, compared with 2.3 for other, comparable firms.     

Interactions of the firm's real and financial decisions

This paper provides an integrated approach to the theory of the firm. Under technological uncertainty, corporate taxes, risky debt and risk neutrality it is shown that the firm's investment production and financing decisions are made simultaneously. It is demonstrated that the relationship between optimal capital (or labour) and debt is not strictly negative as in Dotan and Ravid (1982) nor strictly positive as in Hite (1977). The direction of this relationship depends on the characteristics of debt and the characteristics of the firm's production function. Given the simultaneity of the real and financial decisions, it is shown that an interior optimum exists for the firm's value as a function of debt.     

Debt and credit: Recent Canadian developments

In our examination of how recent developments (to 1988) in debt and credit markets have affected the Canadian economy, we compare the recent experience of borrower behavior in Canada with that in the United States, looking at debt-GDP ratios for various sectors and the corporate debt-equity ratio. In the late 1980s, the key differences between the two countries in the financial behavior of both the household and corporate sectors derive, we believe, from the sharper shock faced by Canadians in the early 1980s. Our examination of the relationship between credit growth and the growth of spending in the Canadian economy utilizes credit-indicator models developed at the Bank of Canada. We find that over the 1980–1987 period forecasts of the growth of real GDP and nominal GDP based on indicator models using real total household credit and nominal consumer credit, respectively, have narrowly outperformed the best bivariate monetary indicator models.     

Investment under Uncertainty, Debt and Taxes

It is common practice in financial derivative valuation to use a discount factor based on the riskless debt rate. But, to what extent is this discount factor appropriate for cash flows emerging in capital budgeting? To answer this question, we introduce a framework for real asset valuation that considers both personal and corporate taxation. We first discuss broad circumstances under which personal taxes do not affect valuation. We show that the appropriate discount rate for equity‐financed flows in a risk‐neutral setting is an equity rate that differs from the riskless debt rate by a tax wedge due to the presence of personal taxation. We extend this result to the valuation of the interest tax shield for exogenous debt policy with default risk. Interest tax shields, which accrue at a net rate corresponding to the difference between the corporate tax rate and a tax rate related to the personal tax rates, can have either positive or negative values. We also provide an illustrative real options application of our valuation approach to the case of an option to delay investment in a project, showing that the application of Black and Scholes formula may be incorrect in presence of personal taxes.     

Does Taxation Stifle Corporate Investment? Firm‐Level Evidence from ASEAN Countries

This article conducts a firm‐level analysis of the effect of taxation on corporate investment, using large‐scale panel data on non‐financial firms over the period 1990–2014, and controlling for macrostructural differences among ASEAN countries. We find a significant degree of persistence in fixed investment over time, which varies with firm characteristics, such as size, growth prospects, profitability and leverage. The non‐linear estimations indicate that taxation facilitates business investment (possibly by enabling public investment in infrastructure and human capital, and the proper functioning of government institutions), but this effect turns negative and stifles private investment growth as the tax burden increases.     

Taxes,risk taking,and financial stability

After the global financial crisis, the use of taxes to enhance financial stability received new attention. This paper analyzes the corrective role of taxes in banking and compares two instruments, namely, an allowance for corporate equity (ACE), which mitigates the debt bias in corporate taxation, and a Pigovian tax on bank debt (bank levy). We emphasize financial stability gains driven by lower bank asset risk and develop a principal-agent model, in which risk taking depends on the bank's capital structure and, by extension, on the tax treatment of debt and equity. We find that (i) the ACE unambiguously reduces risk taking, (ii) bank levies reduce risk taking if they are independent of bank performance but may be counterproductive otherwise, and (iii) taxes are especially effective if regulatory capital requirements are constrained to low levels.     

Cross-border tax effects on affiliate investment—Evidence from European multinationals

Recent studies suggest that multinational firm activities at home and abroad are positively correlated which may be due to the use of common inputs (like marketing, patents, etc.). Then, a cost shock at one location may lead to reduced activity in all other locations within the firm. In this paper, we theoretically and empirically analyze national corporate tax policy in such a setting. Our main hypothesis is that corporate taxation at the parent location not only reduces the parent's capital stock but also lowers capital stocks at affiliates abroad. Using micro data on European multinational firms, we confirm the hypothesis showing that a 10 percentage point increase in corporate tax rates is associated with a 5.6% decrease in the affiliate's capital stock. From a welfare point of view, this cross-border tax effect on the capital stock gives rise to a negative fiscal externality of corporate taxation which is empirically shown to compensate a substantial fraction of the well-known positive externality due to profit shifting.     

Taxing the Financially Integrated Multinational Firm

This paper develops a theoretical model of corporate taxation in the presence of financially integrated multinational firms. Under the assumption that multinational firms use some measure of internal loans to finance foreign investment, we find that the optimal corporate tax rate is positive from the perspective of a small, open economy. This finding contrasts the standard result that the optimal‐source‐based capital tax is zero. Intuitively, when multinational firms finance investment in one country with loans from affiliates in another country, the burden of the corporate taxes levied in the latter country partly falls on investment and thus workers in the former country. This tax exporting mechanism introduces a scope for corporate taxes, which is not present in standard models of international taxation. Accounting for the internal capital markets of multinational firms thus helps resolve the tension between standard theory predicting zero capital taxes and the casual observation that countries tend to employ corporate taxes at fairly high rates.     

Real capital market integration in the EU: How far has it gone? What will the effect of the euro be?

Much effort has been devoted to the study of financial market integration in Europe. Little is known, however, about real capital market integration – the degree to which plants and equipment move to take advantage of locally high returns. This paper looks at the evidence. An analysis of flows of foreign direct investment in Europe shows that integration was quite limited in the early 1980s, but has increased considerably since then. Another analysis looks at rates of return of a large number of firms. It reveals that country-specific factors play a significant role in explaining corporate returns, even after taking risk into account. This finding is incompatible with the CAPM definition of market integration. The view that integration is limited in Europe is further strengthened when the same approach is carried out for the USA and Canada. Part of the national specificity appears to be related to labour and goods market regulations, which harm firms profitability. If, by introducing more transparency and eliminating currency risk, EMU strengthens competition on the real capital market, one obvious economic benefit will be a more rational and efficient use of capital, but the most important potential consequences are political. Special-interest regulations of an exclusively national nature will not survive. They will either fall in a wave of internationalist liberalization, or become embedded in 'harmonized' regulations at the federal level. A reduction in excessive regulatory burdens, notably in the labour market, could lead to substantial and shared productivity gains.     

Chinese lessons: state-owned enterprises and the regulation of foreign investment in Canada

A recent influx of Asian investment is changing the character of the Canadian oil and gas industry and reviving old debates on the regulation of foreign investment. Particular attention has been placed on investment by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), driven in part by public suspicion about investment from China, which has been the largest source of SOE capital flows to Canada. Recent amendments to the Investment Canada Act have made SOE investment more difficult and have raised questions about the country’s attractiveness as an investment destination. This paper makes the case for non-discrimination of SOEs in the investment review process. In the context of a policy framework that is fundamentally supportive of inward foreign direct investment (FDI), the Canadian government does not require a set of redundant measures to protect against the relatively low risk of undesirable investment.     

Dividend taxes,corporate investment,and ‘Q’

Taxes on corporate distributions have traditionally been regarded as a ‘double tax’ on corporate income. This view implies that while the total effective tax rate on corporate source income affects real economic decisions, the distribution of this tax burden between the shareholders and the corporation is irrelevant. Recent research has suggested an alternative to this traditional view. One explanation of why firms in the United States pay dividends in spite of the heavy tax liabilities associated with this form of distribution is that the stock market capitalizes the tax payments associated with corporate distributions. This capitalization leaves investors indifferent at the margin between a corporation's decision to pay out dividends or to retain earnings. This alternative view holds that while changes in the dividend tax rate will affect shareholder wealth, they will have no impact on corporate investment decisions.This paper develops econometric tests which distinguish between these two views of dividend taxation. By extending Tobin's ‘q’ theory of investment to incorporate taxes at both the corporate and personal levels, the implications of each view for corporate investment decisions can be derived. The competing views may be tested by comparing the performance of investment equations estimated under each theory's predictions. British time series data are particularly appropriate for testing hypotheses about dividend taxes because of the substantial postwar variation in effective tax rates on corporate distributions. The econometric results suggest that dividend taxes have important effects on investment decisions.     

Banks’ non-traditional activities under regulatory changes: impact on risk,performance and capital adequacy

Using the big six Canadian chartered banks quarterly financial statements and daily stock market data from 1982 to 2018, we examine the impact of non-interest income on Canadian banks’ risk, performance and capital under the different major regulatory changes made to the Bank Act of Canada. Our results show that Canadian banks’ expansion into non-traditional activities had slightly decreased their risks and significantly improved their performance benefitting from income diversification. Moreover, while adhering to capital adequacy regulation, reshuffling banks’ portfolio towards non-traditional activities did not reduce Canadian banks’ capital ratio. In spite of the re-regulation towards universal banking against ring-fencing, this feature buttresses the effectiveness of capital adequacy regulation in Canada in linking banks capital allocation with their risk taking.     

CEO的财务经历有利于缓解企业融资约束吗*

CEO的财务经历有利于其做出合理的融资决策和投资决策,从而有助于降低企业融资约束。以2000—2013年沪深A股上市公司作为研究对象,本文实证检验结果证明了笔者的这一假设。该结论在控制内生性以及采用其他指标衡量融资约束等稳健性检验之后仍然成立。进一步检验结果表明,在外部融资条件较差时,CEO财务经历对于缓解融资约束的作用更为显著;同时,CEO财务经历有助于企业提高投资绩效。这表明了具有财务经历的CEO通过提高企业外部融资能力和投资决策的合理性,从而缓解企业融资约束。本文在丰富高阶梯队理论和融资约束领域文献的同时,对于上市公司制定科学合理的CEO聘任决策以及缓解融资约束等方面有重要的启示。     

金融化有助于企业研发投入吗

基于我国“脱实向虚”的经济现状,以我国深圳证券交易所中小企业板上市的高新技术企业为样本,研究企业金融化对研发投入的影响。结果发现：高新技术中小企业金融化程度越高,研发投入越多;相比于国有产权、金融发展水平较高地区,民营产权、金融发展水平较低地区的高新技术中小企业金融化更加有助于其研发投入;金融化对高新技术中小企业研究阶段支出有促进作用,而对开发阶段支出有挤占效应。     

资本市场对外开放能够促进企业创新吗?——基于“沪港通”交易制度的经验证据

作为资本市场对外开放的改革创新机制,沪港通交易制度的实施吸引了众多学者的关注。但现有研究主要考察了沪港通交易制度对资本市场信息效率的影响,对其是否会影响微观企业行为,尤其是企业的创新投资行为研究不足。基于此,本文采用2010—2016年A股上市公司为样本,利用沪港通交易制度实施这一事件作为准自然实验,构建双重差分模型,实证检验了沪港通交易制度对企业创新的影响。研究发现:(1)沪港通交易制度实施后,沪股通标的企业的创新水平显著上升。(2)经理人职业忧虑在沪港通交易制度影响企业创新的过程中既发挥了中介作用,又具有调节效应。表明缓解经理人职业忧虑,抑制经理人短视行为是沪港通交易制度促进企业创新的重要途径。(3)沪港通交易制度对企业创新的促进作用受到上市公司信息环境的调节影响,二者之间的正向关系在上市公司信息环境较差时更加强烈。本研究为沪港通交易制度影响微观企业行为的研究提供了新的实证证据,并揭示了沪港通交易制度影响企业创新的作用机制,对于深刻理解沪港通交易制度,持续推进资本市场对外开放进程,提高企业创新能力,实现创新驱动发展战略,具有重要的启示意义。     

Financial systems,financing constraints and investment: empirical analysis of OECD countries

This paper investigates the influence of cash flow on corporate investment in 11 OECD countries. We find that the sensitivity of investment levels to internally available funds differs significantly across countries, and is lower in countries with predominantly close bank–firm relationships than in countries with predominantly arm's-length bank–firm relationships. At the same time, we find no relationship of the levels of financial constraints to indicators of overall financial development. Our results are consistent with the view that information and incentive problems in the capital market have important effects on corporate investment, and that close bank–firm relationships can reduce these problems and thus improve the access of firms to external finance.     

Financial Structure and Corporate Behavior in Japan and the US: insulation versus integration with speculative pressures

This paper examines the impact of speculative financial markets on corporate behavior under the Japanese and US financial systems. While both countries experienced speculative financial booms during the 1980s, real sector corporate decision making was relatively insulated from such activity in Japan by its bifurcated capital markets: high-turnover trading of much equity coexists with another segment in which large blocks of firms equity and debt are held long term, by capital suppliers who are strategic business allies. In the American system, in contrast, fluid and impersonal stock trading leaves firms vulnerable to the impact of short term price movements. This avenue for speculative financial market pressures has militated toward reduced time horizons and financial ratio-based decision criteria in the US corporate sector. The main implication is that mechanisms must be found for insulating American corporate decision making from speculative pressures. Rather than attempting to mimic the undemocratic role played by banks and other buysiness insiders in Japan, US policy makers should achieve a similar insulating effect by vesting more power in corporate constituences other than shareholders—especially employees. An approach built around ‘democratic stakeholder governance’ is proposed.     

风险投资对提高公司成长期权的价值——来自创业板上市公司的经验证据

以成长期权作为衡量公司投资效率与未来发展潜力的指标,从风险投资机构为企业提供投资指引增值服务的视角,利用2009—2010年我国创业板上市公司的数据,采用加权最小二乘法估计回归模型,探究风险投资机构对我国风险企业的引导作用及其投资动机。结果显示:风险投资机构的参与、数量以及持股比例均显著降低公司成长期权的价值;多家风险投资机构同时参与具有合谋套利的行为表现,追逐资本的快速增值是风险投资机构的主要投资动机。这说明目前我国风险投资机构并未切实发挥改善风险企业的融资环境和管理水平的积极效应。     

The Finnish Corporate Income Tax Reform and the Financial Strategy of Firms: A General Equilibrium Approach

This paper simulates the effects of the recent Finnish corporate tax reform with a computable general equilibrium model. It shows that the impact of the reform on the capital stock depends on the reactions of firms. If the financial strategy is changed to prefer dividend distribution and share issues, the cost of capital falls and the capital stock increases. On the other hand, if the criterion of financial policy is to minimise the welfare loss of current shareholders, the earlier financial behaviour should be continued. In that case,the induced higher cost of capital leads to a lower capital stock. The overall welfare evaluation of the tax reform is not sensitive to the regime shift: the reform should not have been implemented. This is because the increase in interest income taxation distorts saving decisions, expands the net foreign debt of the economy and weakens the terms of trade.