Crowding out private equity: Canadian evidence

In this paper, we examine a Canadian tax-driven venture capital vehicle known as the “Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corporation” (LSVCC). As a theoretical matter, we suggest that the LSVCCs can be expected to have higher agency costs and lower profitability than private venture capital funds. We present data that is consistent with this view. The central question that we analyze, however, is whether the tax advantages conferred on LSVCCs have resulted in LSVCCs “crowding out,” or displacing other types of venture capital funds. Empirical analysis of our data (which covers the 1977–2001 period) is highly consistent with crowding out. The data suggest that crowding out has been sufficiently energetic as to lead to a reduction in the aggregate pool of venture capital in Canada, frustrating one of the key governmental goals underlying the LSVCC programs; namely, the expansion of the aggregate pool of capital. In the course of our analysis, we confirm the importance of macroeconomic factors (the performance of the stock market, real interest rates, and changes in real gross domestic product) in affecting the supply of and demand for venture capital. We also generate evidence that is consistent with the proposition that entrepreneurs in the market for venture capital prefer to incorporate their businesses federally, rather than provincially.     

Corporate taxes and the demand for labor and capital in developing countries

This article provides evidence about the impact of corporate taxation on both labor and capital demand by private companies in a developing economy, using firm level data from Chile. Our results show that higher corporate tax rates reduce not only the demand for capital, but also the demand for labor due to complementarities between both inputs. An interesting element of the results presented in this article is the asymmetry between the effects of taxation according to company size. The impact on labor demand is significantly higher in large corporations than in small enterprises, while the demand for capital is more responsive to corporate tax changes in small firms. We can explain these results based on differences in credit constraints according to firm size.     

Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?

This paper reviews the evidence on financing technology-based small firms (TBSFs) in Europe. European TBSFs finance new investments by relying primarily on internal funds, due to capital market failures induced by asymmetric information. European venture capital has caught up with US venture capital, but this is mainly because of the growth in UK venture investments. It is unclear whether European venture capital has been able to certify the quality and enhance the growth of funded companies. Compared with the NASDAQ, there is little development of trading in high-tech stocks in Europe: the so-called New Markets established in the 1990s collapsed in the wake of the Internet bubble crash. Public venture capital and research and development (R&D) tax incentives seem to have positively affected high-tech firms.     

Bank credit,public financial incentives,tax financial incentives and export performance during the global financial crisis

This paper investigates the extent to which access to credit, public financial incentives and tax financial incentives affect export performance using the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-Unicredit data set, covering firms within Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the UK during the 2008 global financial crisis. The results show that firms receiving credit or benefiting from public financial incentives display higher export intensity and export a greater number of product lines compared to those that did not, especially in countries with better access to credit and/or financial incentives during the crisis. Further, firms benefiting from tax financial incentives show a better export performance compared to those that did not, regardless of the degree of access to credit and/or financial incentives in the country in which they operate. In addition, the effect of access to credit and public finance incentives on export performance is found to be size-dependent, while the effect of tax financial incentives is not. We suggest that governments should promote publicly funded financial incentives along with conventional schemes, such as R&D subsidies, to promote exports, particularly during a period of financial crisis.     

The role of venture capital in financing small business

Venture capital is a primary and unique source of funding for small firms because these firms (with sales and/or assets under $5 million) have very limited access to traditional capital markets. Venture capital is a substitute, but not a perfect substitute, for trade credit, bank credit, and other forms of financing for small firms. Small businesses are not likely to be successful in attracting venture capital unless the firms have the potential to provide extraordinary returns to the venture capitalist.This study provides an analysis of a survey of venture capital firms that participate in small business financing. The survey participants are venture capital firms that were 1986 members of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the largest venture capital association in the United States.The average size of the venture capital firms responding to the survey is $92 million dollars in assets, with a range from $600 thousand to $500 million. Twenty-three percent of the respondents have total assets below $20 million, and 27% have assets above $100 million.The venture capitalists' investment (assets held) in small firms delineate the supply of venture capital to small firms. Sixty-three of the 92 venture capitalists' have more than 70% of their assets invested in small firms.The venture capitalists were asked how their investment plans might change with changes in the tax law that were projected in the spring of 1986. Fifty-four percent expected to increase their investments in small firms, and 38% did not expect to change these activities.Venture capitalists are very selective in allocating their resources. The average number of annual requests that a venture capitalist receives is 652, and the median number is 500: only 11.5 of the respondents receive more than 1,000 proposals per year.     

Capital Structure Choices and Taxes: Evidence from the Australian Dividend Imputation Tax System

The introduction in 1987 of a dividend imputation tax system in Australia represented a significant change to the tax framework. To the extent that tax incentives influence the use of debt financing, changes in tax laws that alter these incentives will lead to changes in corporate capital structures. This paper examines the changes in corporate capital structure around the introduction of a dividend imputation tax system. The introduction of dividend imputation provides an incentive for firms to (a) reduce the level of debt financing utilized where this incentive varies across firms depending on the firm’s effective corporate tax rate, and (b) increase the level of external equity financing. The results present evidence consistent with these incentives.     

Finance for SMEs: A U.K. Perspective

This paper provide an overview of recent trends in the financing of smaller businesses in the U.K. It refers in particular to the findings of a major recent programme of work in this area funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, in which the author participated. This programme included the first national survey to address these issues since the Bolton Report of 1971, as well as a range of projects covering the finance of ethnic businesses and hi-tech firms as well as the market for informal venture capital. On the basis of this work and of the results of more recent follow up surveyors it is concluded that the evidence for general equity or debt gaps in the U.K. is weak. If anything SME funding was too easy in the boom of the late 1980s. It is argued that consideration could be given to the promotion through seedcorn funding of SME co-operative or mutual guarantee schemes to reduce information asymmetry in U.K. credit markets.     

Does direct foreign investment affect domestic credit constraints?

Firms in developing countries cite credit constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Direct foreign investment may ease credit constraints by bringing in scarce capital. Alternatively, if foreign firms borrow heavily from domestic banks, they may crowd local firms out of domestic capital markets. Using firm data from the Ivory Coast, we test whether: (1) domestic firms are more credit constrained than foreign firms, and (2) whether borrowing by foreign firms exacerbates domestic firm credit constraints. Results provide support for both hypotheses. We also find that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less financially constrained than other domestic enterprises.     

Optimal tax and tariff policies with tax credits

This paper examines the optimal tax and tariff policies for a small open economy when mobile capital receives a tax credit for taxes paid to the host country. For a capital-importing country, a tax on capital equal to the source country tax rate (to capture tax revenue) combined with a subsidy to encourage capital imports is the optimal policy. Results are also derived for cases in which only one of the instruments can be varied. For a capital-exporting country that cannot reduce its capital tax rate, a subsidy to the sector using exported capital is desirable.     

Cross-border banking,credit access,and the financial crisis

We study the sensitivity of credit supply to bank financial conditions in 16 emerging European countries before and during the financial crisis. We use survey data on 10,701 applicant and non-applicant firms that enable us to disentangle effects driven by positive and negative shocks to the banking system from demand shocks that may vary across lenders. We find strong evidence that firms' access to credit was affected by changes in the financial conditions of their banks. During the crisis firms were more credit constrained if they were dealing with banks that experienced a decline in equity and Tier 1 capital, as well as losses on financial assets. We also find that access to credit reflects the balance sheet conditions of foreign parent banks. The effect of positive and negative shocks to a bank is greater for riskier firms and firms with fewer tangible assets.     

金融部门人力资本配置与实体企业金融资产投资

在实体经济“冷”与虚拟经济“热”的大背景下,中国实体企业投资于金融资产的比例快速提升,经济金融化格局正在加速形成。本文试图从金融部门的人力资本配置视角对实体企业金融资产配置的形成逻辑进行诠释。本文以人均受教育年限来衡量金融部门的人力资本配置,采用2008年经济普查微观数据库的数据构造地级市层面的度量指标,并匹配至2009—2018年非金融类上市公司进行实证检验。计量结果显示,金融部门的人力资本水平越高,实体企业金融资产配置越多,且该效应在信息不对称企业中尤为显著。进一步的机制检验发现,在金融部门人力资本提高的条件下,实体企业债务期限显著缩短,具体表现为短期负债增加而长期负债减少。本文研究结论表明,人力资本偏向金融部门增强了其在信贷合约中的市场势力,信贷供给短期化是实体企业金融化的重要原因之一。     

出口成本、信贷约束与企业出口

出口固定成本的存在将导致企业生产率的“自我选择”效应。如果存在出口信贷约束,信贷获取能力强的企业出口表现将优于信贷获取能力差的企业。本文利用世界银行调查数据,实证发现信贷约束限制企业出口,银行营运资金贷款和固定投资贷款对企业出口的影响存在非对称性。营运资金贷款对扩大出口集约边际和扩展边际的作用都很明显,而固定投资贷款仅仅扩大出口扩展边际。此外,对于财务脆弱的企业,银行信贷的出口促进作用更加显著。     

Strategic Trade Policy through the Tax System

If conventional instruments of strategic trade policy are unavailable, the system of foreign profit taxation and transfer price guidelines may serve as surrogate policy instruments. In this paper, I consider a model where firms from two countries compete with each other on a market in a third country. Both firms have affiliates in the third country where (part of) the production takes place. I analyse optimal policy choices of the firms' residence countries aiming at strategically manipulating the competitiveness of their firms. I show that, first, countries prefer the tax exemption system over the tax credit system if there is no intra‐firm trade. Second, if the headquarters provide inputs for production in the affiliate, countries prefer the tax exemption system if the transfer price for these inputs is close to the headquarters' variable cost and if the residence country's tax rate is high. However, if transfer prices are high and the residence country's tax rate is low, I show that the tax credit system is an optimal tax policy choice for both countries. From a policy perspective, the view that the tax exemption system is generally the best policy response if domestic firms' competitiveness is a policy goal has to be qualified.     

Supply Chains,Global Financial Shocks and Firm Behaviour towards Liquidity Needs

Driven by the increasingly important role of supply chains in global production, this paper studies empirical association between global credit‐market shocks and firm behaviour towards liquidity needs across countries and industries. Focusing on the adjustment of working‐capital financing, we find two pieces of supporting evidence from international firm‐level panel data covering the period 2002:I–2012:IV. First, for industries where specific investment in the input supplier–customer relationship is large, firms are more exposed to credit‐market shocks. We find that measures of global credit‐market shocks are negatively associated with trade receivables, trade payables and inventories, conditional on the level of contract intensity in the industries where firms operate. Second, firms in emerging markets are more vulnerable to credit‐market shocks than are firms in developed countries. We are also able to verify the economic significance of sales growth, operating cash flows, cash stock and firm size in the overall adjustment. Our findings highlight the importance of balance‐sheet contagion along supply chains during the 2007–09 global financial crisis.     

现阶段老工业基地国有存量资本有效运营问题及对策研究

目前,造成现阶段老工业基地国有存量资本运营效率低的主要问题有税收政策不灵活,信贷政策限制多,社会保障制度尚未完善,不良资本剥离制度不健全,非制度因素禁锢严重,无形资本激活制度有待改进,会计方法的选择影响国有存量资本计量等问题。应实行税收减免制度,改善老工业基地信贷环境,完善社会保障制度,创建无形资本核算评估制度,选择科学会计核算方法,创建无形资本核算评估制度。     

Growing firms and the credit constraint

Restricted access to finance (either debt or equity or both) is potentially a significant constraint on the growth of small businesses. Financing problems arise primarily as a consequence of information asymmetries; the adverse effects of these may in part be counteracted by the use of collateral as a signalling and bonding mechanism and/or by the development of a good working relationship between lender and borrower. If the form of information asymmetry differs for growth firms or if the effects of information asymmetries are less easily ameliorated then growing firms may be more adversely affected by credit constraints. If growth is contingent upon access to credit then the generalised implications for the economy may be significant and detrimental. Using evidence from a survery of over 6,000 firms conducted in 1992, this paper addresses the extent to which growth firms are adversely affected by a credit constraint; the results suggest that the credit constraint for growing firms per se is no greater but growth firms may still experience a credit constraint as a consequence of their relative youth. However, there is evidence to suggest that firms expecting to grow in the future do perceive a rather tighter credit constraint but this may be partly or wholly offset by a generally better relationship with their bank.     

Do Swedish multinationals pay less in taxes than domestic firms?

In recent years, there has been growing concern that multinational enterprises (MNE s) engage in strategic tax planning in order to shift profits to low‐tax jurisdictions. This common perception is generally confirmed by empirical evidence, which is foremost provided for countries with high corporate taxes and relatively complex tax systems. We investigate whether multinational firms in a country with a comparatively more competitive tax system undertake profit shifting. We do this using detailed census data from corporate income statements and balance sheets filed by Swedish manufacturing firms between 1997 and 2007. We detect profit shifting by comparing MNE s with (purely) domestic firms. In particular, we identify systematic differences in tax payments, earnings (before interest and taxes) and equity ratios between multinational and comparable domestic firms based on propensity score matching. In addition, we examine the tax behavioural impact of acquiring multinational status using difference‐in‐differences estimations and/or propensity score matching. Our results reveal that the extent to which multinational firms have lower tax payments than their domestic counterparts depends on their production characteristics and foreign market outreach. In particular, we find evidence indicating that firms operating in few foreign markets and firms that become multinational engage in profit shifting from Sweden.     

The subsidization of small business through federal credit programs: Analytical foundations

The relationship between federal credit programs and the allocation of financial and real capital has begun to attract more attention as such programs have grown. Defenders of these programs argue that various capital market imperfections necessitate federal credit assistance. Examining the relationship between such imperfections, credit programs and the tax system should facilitate a more careful evaluation of the rationales for and the effects of various alternative policy initiatives. This paper analyzes the optimal taxation of small and large businesses when smaller businesses face higher borrowing costs, whatever the cause. The optimal tax scheme derived here implies a progressive tax applied to all businesses. In the absence of such a progressive tax scheme, federal credit programs for smaller businesses that reduce small business borrowing costs may be viewed as an imperfect substitute. Importantly, the results regarding optimal taxation (subsidization) hold even in the absence of particular capital market imperfections and without resorting to social welfare functions weighting small business output greater than large business output.     

我国制药行业上市公司资本结构的实证分析

2001年以来,医疗制度改革、GMP达标、加入WTO及OTC市场竞争的加剧等,使我国制药企业的产业环境发生了巨大变化,进而对制药企业的融资策略及资本结构决策行为也构成影响。在此背景下,本文以2002年深沪两市制药行业上市公司为样本,对影响我国制药行业上市公司资本结构的主要因素进行了实证分析,结果表明:增长期权对债务筹集能力显著正相关;销售费用融资主要来源于长期资本;规模对公司债务筹资能力具有正效应;公司的资产担保价值与长期负债比率正相关;产生内部资源的能力与短期债务间存在相互替代性;成长性、经营风险、非债务税盾和投资对资本结构的影响不大。