Financial structure,informality and development

The impact of capital market imperfections and costs of creating and operating formal sector firms on total factor productivity is studied. We propose a firm dynamics model with endogenous formal and informal sectors where firms face a technology adoption opportunity. The model predicts that countries with a low degree of debt enforcement and high costs of formality are characterized by low allocative efficiency and large output shares produced by low productivity, informal sector firms. For frictions parametrized using the Doing Business database, the model generates a drop in total factor productivity of up to 25% relative to the US.     

From Business Tax to Value‐added Tax: The Effects of Reform on Chinese Transport Industry Firms

We study the effects of switching from business tax (BT) to value‐added tax (VAT) on the performance of firms in the Chinese transport industry, in an effort to determine whether the change in policy improves firm performance. We study the effects of this new VAT reform from a theoretical perspective, and test the effects on 49 listed transportation firms using a difference‐in‐differences model. The results indicate that VAT reform has a positive effect on profitability and the growth ability of firms in the transport industry, but no significant effects on the debt‐paying ability and operating capability of firms are found. Furthermore, we propose some suggestions for speeding up the development of transportation firms by replacing BT with VAT.     

Spillover effects of VAT Self-enforcement properties: Evidence based on the replacement of business tax with VAT reform

In accordance with the purchasing tax-deduction method and the receipt-based value added tax (VAT) system, the same transaction can be recorded by two firms, which creates self-enforcement properties, thereby restraining tax avoidance. Using the Replacement of Business Tax with VAT reform in China, this paper adopts a difference-in-differences design to investigate the spillover effects of VAT self-enforcement properties on corporate income tax avoidance by manually collating information about suppliers/clients of listed firms. As the listed firms' suppliers/clients switch from paying business tax to paying VAT, there is a striking decline in their corporate income tax avoidance behavior. This effect is pronounced in firms with closer upstream and downstream correlations, higher information complexity and stronger incentives for tax avoidance.     

Are family and friends the wrong investors? Evidence from U.S. start-ups

This paper investigates the effects of funding from family and friends (i.e., informal funding) on subsequent access to venture capital for start-up firms. We retrieve information on financing activity of young U.S. firms from a novel dataset based on private placements filings (Form Ds). To address potential endogeneity issues, we use an instrument that hinges on the family size of founders as an exogenous constraint on the supply of informal funds. Our results show that informal finance significantly reduces the probability of future financing events. We provide suggestive evidence that this is due to conflicts of interests between informal stakeholders and professional investors.     

Adjustment costs of institutional tax changes from the audit pricing perspective: Empirical evidence from the VAT reform

Institutional changes inevitably impose adjustment costs on firms while also generating benefits. However, empirical evidence regarding the adjustment costs of institutional changes is limited, with much of the focus centered on benefits. Using data on China’s A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2018 and the nation’s staggered adoption of the “business tax to value-added tax reform” (hereafter, “VAT reform”) as a natural experiment, we examine the impact of this reform on a particular corporate cost: audit fees. We find audit fees to be 8.11% higher for VAT reform firms than for non-VAT reform firms. This difference does not exist before or after the reform year. That is, it is only observed in the year of VAT reform implementation. This indicates the existence of an adjustment cost specifically related to the VAT reform. Furthermore, we observe larger fee increases among firms audited by Big 4 international audit firms, firms that require more audit work, firms that are more complex, and firms with weak internal controls. From the audit pricing perspective, we provide evidence of the economic consequences of tax reform. The corporate adjustment costs that arise from institutional changes deserve more attention from decision-makers.     

Informal or formal financing? Evidence on the co-funding of Chinese firms

Different modes of external finance provide heterogeneous benefits for the borrowing firms. Informal finance offers informational advantages whereas formal finance is scalable. Using unique survey data from China, we find that informal finance is associated with higher sales growth for small firms but lower sales growth for large firms. We identify a complementary effect between informal and formal finance for the sales growth of small firms, but not for large firms. Co-funding, thereby simultaneously using the informational advantage of informal finance and the scalability of formal finance, is therefore the optimal choice for small firms.     

Investment efficiency,state-owned enterprises and privatisation: Evidence from Viet Nam in Transition

Our research firstly tests the difference in investment efficiency between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms and secondly evaluates the effect of privatisation and equitisation policies on the investment efficiency of former state owned enterprises (SOEs). We use a novel dataset from Viet Nam which covers large and non-listed SMEs across construction, manufacturing, and service sectors. Our methodology uses a structural model to test the relationship between Tobin's Q and capital spending. While evident differences in investment efficiency are found across heterogeneous groups of private firms (size, industry, financially constrained and location), we find no evidence of investment spending being linked to marginal returns by SOEs across all sectors and size classes. However, former SOEs that have been privatised and equitized with a minority state shareholding display positive links between Q and investment. In fact, the link is stronger for these firms than for private firms. Differences are also evident across size and sector highlighting that the method of divestment chosen by government shareholders has a differential impact on efficiency across groups of firms and industries.     

Social trust and corporate financial asset holdings: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of social trust on firms’ holdings of non-currency financial assets using a large sample of firms in China’s real sector. We find that firms in regions of the high social trust hold fewer financial assets, consistent with the notion that credibility in high-trust regions reduces information asymmetry and transaction cost among market participants. This leads to better access to formal and informal financing and higher profitability for the real economy, eventually depressing firms’ financial asset allocations. We also find that the negative effect of social trust on financial asset holdings is more prominent for private firms and firms with weak internal monitoring from large shareholders, suggesting that corporations rely more on trust in these cases; it is less pronounced when firms are in regions with good legal systems, proving social trust to be a substitute for formal institutions.     

Endogenous Tariff Formation: The Case of Mercosur

Mercosur appears as an interesting case study for analyzingthe determinants of exceptions in regional trade agreements.Its member countries—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, andUruguay—intended to make Mercosur a full customs unionby January 1995. This goal turned out to be too ambitious, andthe Protocol of Ouro Preto and other agreements signed in December1994 led to a hybrid solution. Overall, out of a total of 9,119tariff lines, around 30 percent are subject, in at least onemember country, to either external deviations from the commonexternal tariff or internal deviations from free trade. Thusan important set of holes remains under the existing agreement,leading some authors to consider Mercosur an incomplete customsunion. This article compares the results of the theoretical literatureon endogenous tariff formation with evidence from Mercosur.The results show that Mercosur's common external tariff andmember countries' deviations from it and from internal freetrade can be explained by sector or industry lobbying as predictedby the endogenous tariff literature. If a viable political economyis a key to success, then Mercosur is here to stay.     

Asymmetric information and liquidity constraints: A new test

Using a novel measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms, this study shows that information-related financial market imperfections do matter for a firm’s access to external finance. Prior studies of the importance of liquidity constraints faced by nonfinancial firms have suffered from a glaring weakness. They have been based on a sample of publicly traded firms, omitting precisely those firms most likely to be liquidity constrained. Furthermore, they have tended to rely on indirect measures of the degree of information asymmetry, such as firm size. We overcome these limitations by focusing on the banking sector. Unlike the nonfinancial sector, the banking sector has balance sheet and income data available for all firms, whether or not they are publicly traded. This allows the use of a superior measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms by distinguishing between publicly traded and non-publicly traded banks.     

Foreign competition and acquisitions

I provide evidence on the impact of foreign competition on firms' propensities to engage in mergers and acquisitions. Using import tariff reductions as exogenous shocks that increase foreign competition, I find that affected firms are more likely to make acquisitions following tariff reductions. Cross-sectional tests show that this association is more pronounced for single segment firms, capital intensive firms, firms with higher profit margins, and firms with better growth opportunities, which suggests that this association is stronger for firms that are affected by increased competition to a greater extent and firms that stand to gain more from acquisitions when faced with increased competition. Moreover, the positive relation between acquisition propensities and tariff cuts is more pronounced for financially unconstrained firms and during times of high capital liquidity, which implies that it is easier for firms with greater access to capital to respond to increases in foreign competition by making acquisitions. Finally, I find some evidence that the acquisitions made in response to tariff decreases are associated with better firm profitability ratios in the following year, indicating that firms respond to increased competition by making acquisitions to improve their operational efficiency.     

Public debt,sovereign default risk and shadow economy

This paper analyzes the interactions between government's indebtedness, sovereign default risk and the size of the informal sector. We test an underlying theory that suggests that in societies with limited tax enforcement, the presence of informality constrains the set of pledgeable fiscal policy alternatives, increases public debt and the implied probability of sovereign debt restructuring. The hypotheses that we test in our empirical analysis are: a larger size of the informal sector is associated with (1) higher public indebtedness, (2) higher interest rates paid on sovereign debt, (3) a higher level of financial instability and (4) a higher probability of sovereign default. The empirical results from cross-country panel regressions show that after controlling for previously highlighted variables in the literature that could explain the variation in financial instability, sovereign default risk and public indebtedness, the size of informality remains as a significant determinant of these variables.     

Tariff uncertainty and firm innovation: Evidence from the U.S.–China Permanent Normal Trade Relation

We examine the effect of the tariff uncertainty associated with Chinese imports on U.S. firm innovation. Our test exploits the U.S. conferral of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) on China—a policy that reduces the uncertainty of future tariff increases for Chinese goods. We find a significant increase in the number of patents and patent citations for U.S. firms affected by PNTR relative to other firms. This result is stronger for firms with more irreversible investments and for firms that experience a greater increase in Chinese goods following PNTR. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the view that lowering the tariff uncertainty of Chinese imports boosts the attractiveness for U.S. firms to make long-term irreversible investment (such as technological innovation) and thus induces U.S. firms to innovate more.     

Response of Tax Credit Claims to Tax Enforcement: Evidence from a Quasi‐Experiment in Chile

Diesel in Chile receives different tax treatments depending on its use. If diesel is used in industrial activities, the diesel taxes paid can be fully used as a credit against VAT, but if it is used in freight or public transportation – basically trucks and buses – only a fraction of diesel taxes paid can be claimed as a tax credit for VAT payments. As a result of this different tax treatment, firms have incentives to use ‘tax‐exempted’ diesel in activities requiring ‘non‐tax‐exempted’ diesel. This tax wedge therefore generates an opportunity for tax evasion, especially for firms with multiple economic activities, one of them being transport. In this paper, we analyse the impact of a tax enforcement programme implemented by the Chilean Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where letters requiring information about diesel purchases and use and vehicle ownership were sent to around 200 firms in 2003. Using different empirical strategies to consider the non‐randomness of the selection of firms, the empirical results show consistently that firms receiving a letter decreased their diesel tax credits by around 10 per cent.     

VAT threshold and small business behavior: evidence from Thai tax returns

International Tax and Public Finance - This paper examines how small firms respond to the VAT registration threshold in the context of high informality. Using the panel of VAT and corporate income...     

The determinants of audit fees—evidence from the voluntary sector

Given the growing demand for accountability in the public sector, there is a need to begin to investigate audit pricing issues in this sector. This study makes three contributions. First, it develops and estimates, for the first time, a model of audit fee determinants for the charity sector. As in previous private sector company studies, size, organisational complexity and audit firm location are the major determinants. A positive association between audit fees and fees for non-audit services is also observed. Charity sector factors of empirical significance include the nature of the charity (i.e., grant-making or fund-raising), its area of activity and the importance of trading income. Separate models for grant-making and fund-raising charities reflect the relative complexity of the audit of fund-raising charities. Second, the lower auditor concentration in the charity sector market, compared to the private sector market, permits a more powerful test of whether large firms and/or auditor expertise are rewarded with a fee premium. In the more complex audit environment of fund-raising charities, the results show that Big Six audit firms receive higher audit fees (18.5%, on average) than non-Big Six firms. Also, non-Big Six audit firms with charity expertise are rewarded with a fee premium over other non-Big Six firms. Finally, the study demonstrates that the charity audit fee rate is significantly lower than that of private sector companies; in fact it is approximately half. A change in the reporting of charity audit fees is proposed to reflect any element of ‘charitable giving’ by the audit firm.     

Financial Sector Risk and the Stock Returns: Evidence from Tokyo Stock Exchange Firms

We investigate whether the activity of financial firms creates value and/or risk to the economy within the asset pricing framework. We use stock return data from nonfinancial firms listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The value-weighted index that is solely composed of nonfinancial firms is augmented with the index of the firms from the financial sector, and we estimate multivariate asset pricing model with these two indices. We note that our procedure can simultaneously take into account the cross-holding phenomena among Japanese firms, especially between the financial sector and the nonfinancial sector. Our augmented index model performs well both with cross-sectional Fama and MacBeth regression test and GMM test. Our two index model with additional Fama and French's HML factor can capture cross-sectional variations of the returns of sample portfolios better than the original Fama and French model can, when measured by Hansen and Jagannathan distance measure. We find that this additional new sector variable can be a substitute for Fama and French's size factor, but not related to the bond index return. This variable has similar factor characteristic as money supply growth or the term structure, but the latter variables contain more information than the former. Morever, our financial sector model helps explain the return and risk structure of Japanese firms during the so-called bubble period.     

THE SMOOTHING OF INCOME NUMBERS: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE ON SYSTEMATIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CORE AND PERIPHERY INDUSTRIAL SECTORS

This study tests the effects of the dual economy on income smoothing behavior. It is hypothesized that a higher degree of smoothing of income numbers will be exhibited by firms in the periphery sector than by firms in the core sector as a reaction to different opportunity structures and experiences. The results indicate that a majority of firms may be resorting to income smoothing. A higher number is included among firms in the periphery sector.     

Export incentives,financial constraints,and the (mis)allocation of credit: Micro-level evidence from subsidized export loans

This paper combines an exogenous shock to the supply of subsidized credit with unique loan-level data from the export sector in Pakistan to identify the impact and allocation of such financial incentives. The removal of subsidized credit causes a significant decline in the exports of privately owned firms, while the exports of large, publicly listed, and group network firms are unaffected. Publicly listed firms make no significant adjustments to their balance sheets, and only their profits are reduced, indicating that they are financially unconstrained. Nearly half of all subsidized loans are assigned to such firms, implying a substantial misallocation of credit and an output loss to privately owned firms of 0.75% of GDP. Productivity differences do not explain the heterogeneous effects across firms.     

Institutions,Informal Economy,and Economic Development

Using cross-national panel data, we examine the evolution of the informal economy through the course of economic development. Borrowing from previously published informal economy estimates for 141 countries over the period 1984-2009 and using panel data estimation techniques, we investigate the relationship between informal economy and the level of economic development, proxied by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Our findings suggest that institutional quality strongly interacts with this relationship. Specifically, we find that a higher GDP per capita is associated with a larger informal sector size in countries where the institutional quality is low. The opposite is true in countries with good institutions. These results are also in line with a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model.