How do financial institutions react to a tax increase?

This paper empirically highlights the role and significance of taxes for the capital structure decisions of banks. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, I show that an increase in the local U.S. state corporate tax rate affects the banks’ financing as well as their operating choices. Better-capitalized banks raise their long-term non-depository debt and thus benefit from an enlarged tax shield. Worse-capitalized banks instead reduce their lending because a higher tax rate increases the tax-adjusted cost of funding, which renders the marginal loan unprofitable.     

How does China's stock market react to supply chain disruptions from COVID-19?

As a once-in-a-century global pandemic, COVID-19 severely hit the global economy and disrupted the worldwide supply chain. Based on 505 Chinese firms, we use the event study method to explore the effect of COVID-19 on the financial performance of firms. The findings show that COVID-19 has an immediate impact on Chinese firms. Hubei firms experience stronger effects than non-Hubei firms. Supply chain disruptions effects from COVID-19 are observed. Transportation industry is hit more severely than retail industry. Insurance companies experience a strong adverse effect. On the other hand, both medical and competitor firms experience significantly positive spillover effects.     

How important are small banks to small business lending?: New evidence from a survey of small firms

Typically, small banks lend a larger proportion of their assets to small businesses than do large banks. The recent wave of bank mergers has thinned the ranks of small banks, raising the concern that small firms may find it difficult to access bank credit. However, bank consolidation will reduce small business credit only if small banks enjoy an advantage in lending to small businesses. We test the existence of a small bank cost advantage in small business lending by conducting the following simple test: If such advantages exist, then we should observe small businesses in areas with few small banks to have less bank credit. Using data on small business borrowers from the 1993 National Survey of Small Business Finance, we find that the probability of a small firm having a line of credit from a bank does not decrease in the long run when there are fewer small banks in the area, although short-run disruptions may occur. Nor do we find that firms in areas with few small banks are any more likely to repay trade credit late, suggesting that such firms are no more credit constrained than firms in areas with many small banks.     

Can book-tax differences capture earnings management and tax Management? Empirical evidence from China

This study investigates the relationship between book-tax differences (BTDs) and earnings management, tax management, and their interactions in Chinese-listed companies. Using unique tax-effect BTDs obtained from Chinese B-share-listed firms, we find that firms with strong incentives for earnings and tax management exhibit high levels of abnormal BTDs. This suggests that BTDs can be used to capture both accounting and tax manipulations induced by managerial motivations. Our results indicate that earnings management explains 7.4% of abnormal BTDs, tax management accounts for 27.8% of abnormal BTDs, and their interaction explains 3.2% of abnormal BTDs. Tax-effect BTDs are more powerful than income-effect BTDs in capturing opportunistic reporting at both conceptual and empirical levels.     

The effect of investment tax incentives: evidence from China’s value-added tax reform

We estimate the impact of investment tax credit on firm fixed investment in a difference-in-differences-in-differences framework, using China’s 2004 value-added tax reform pilot that introduces a permanent 17%-tax credit for fixed investment in six industries in the Northeastern region. The tax credit raises significantly fixed investment of eligible firms by 28% on average during 2004–2007 relative to 2001–2003, corresponding to a user cost elasticity of 1.84. The tax incentive has larger effects on firms that are less financially constrained such as smaller firms and firms with a larger cash flow. The result is largely driven by responses of domestic private firms and is robust to specifications addressing the issue of anticipation.     

How are political connections valued in China? Evidence from market reaction to CEO succession

Using a sample of listed Chinese firms between 2000 and 2010, the paper analyzes the stock market reaction to CEO succession. We document significantly positive cumulative abnormal returns when CEO succession is accompanied with increased political connections. We also show that the market reaction to political connections is significantly stronger for external successors and for poorly performing firms, while it is significantly weaker for firms in high-tech industries and firms located in more developed regions. Finally we find that political connections are valued significantly less in state owned enterprises than in privately controlled firms. Our findings suggest that Chinese investors do value political connections, and such valuation is conditioned by successor origin, prior firm performance, industry, region, and ownership structure.     

How credible is a too-big-to-fail policy? International evidence from market discipline

This paper analyzes in an international sample of banks from 104 countries if the sensitivity of the cost of deposits to bank risk varies across banks depending on their systemic and absolute size. We analyze a period before the 2007 financial crisis and control for endogeneity of bank size, intervention policies in past banking crises, and soundness of countries’ public finances. Our results are consistent with the predominance of the too-big-to-fail hypothesis, although this effect is stronger in countries that did not impose losses on depositors in past banking crises and in countries with sounder public finances.     

How do taxpayers respond to tax subsidy for long-term savings? Evidence from Thailand’s tax return data

International Tax and Public Finance - This paper uses a panel of personal income tax return data for the population of Thai tax filers to examine how individuals respond to tax subsidy for...     

Are financial derivatives related to intra-entities' tax aggressiveness? UK evidence

This study investigates the effect of hedged versus nonhedged financial derivative instruments on the intra-entities' tax aggressiveness. Our findings provide evidence that multinational enterprises manage derivatives instruments to avoid their tax expenses aggressively. Specifically, nonhedged derivatives are an excellent determinant of the tax aggressiveness practices of corporate groups. Besides, this study speaks to the central role of governance quality in mitigating this aspect of tax aggressiveness and provides practical guidance to tax authorities and regulators for establishing new policies for governing financial derivative instruments and preventing tax aggressiveness from negatively affecting firms and society.     

Does corporate social responsibility protect shareholder value from the shock of COVID-19? Evidence from China

Our study examines whether and how increased engagement in social responsibility activities by a firm affects movements in its stock prices during the COVID-19 public health crisis, which is regarded as an exogenous shock to economic ties between focal firms and their customers, employees, and suppliers. We find that corporate social responsibility has an inverted U-shaped relationship with shareholder value. The nonlinear relationship is more dominant at firms with higher cash-flow constraints and weaker cost-adjustment capabilities. Our research also generates meaningful implications for business practices.     

Do currency exchange rates impact gold prices? New evidence from the ongoing COVID-19 period

We apply the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag method to examine the relationships between seven leading currency exchange rates and gold prices using daily data from January 2017 to April 2021. The results reveal that in the short term, while negative United States dollar (USD) to United Kingdom pound, negative USD to Canadian dollar, negative USD to Japanese yen, negative USD to Danish krone, and positive USD to euro exchange rates increase gold prices, a lagged positive USD to euro and lagged positive USD to Danish krone exchange rates decrease gold prices. A test of the pre-pandemic normal period reveals that the uneven and unpredictable impacts of six exchange rates on gold prices are particularly due to COVID-19. We find efficiency in the gold market, in line with the market efficiency hypothesis and random walk theory. Our findings indicate that gold acts as a safe-haven asset for investors during COVID-19.     

How do firms learn? Evidence from corporate cash holdings during the COVID-19 pandemic

We examine the impact of COVID-19 on US corporate cash holdings. Our findings suggest that greater pandemic exposure is associated with higher corporate cash holdings and that firms learn from prior experiences as they manage their cash policies. More specifically, the level of cash holdings in firms that experienced severe financial constraints during the 2008 credit crisis and firms with prior severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and H1N1 exposure is significantly lower than that of firms with no prior epidemic or financial constraints experience. Overall, our findings support the learning behaviour of cash and contribute to corporate cash holdings literature by providing insights on the extent to which firms learn from prior experiences to manage their liquidity.     

The 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic: How safe are the safe haven assets?

We compare the performance of safe-haven assets during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19 pandemic. First, regarding the GFC, we find, intermediate (weak) safe haven evidence for US dollar, Swiss franc and T-bonds (Gold, Silver and T-bills). Second, with regard to COVID, we find gold is very risky in some settings, while silver has become extremely risky. Collectively, our findings suggest that the character of safe-haven assets has changed between the crises. Therefore, investors should exercise extreme care when investing in potential safe-haven assets during times of market stress.     

Why are shareholders not paid to give up their voting privileges? Unique evidence from Italy

Dual-class share unifications have typically been argued to be beneficial for voting shareholders, who are usually compensated for the loss of their superior voting privileges. However, no covenants exist that make this compensation mandatory for voting shareholders. In this paper, we examine a subset of dual class share unifications from Italy where, in the main, voting shareholders are not offered any compensation in lieu of the loss of their superior voting rights. We present a simple model describing the conditions under which the controlling voting shareholder will choose not to offer compensation to minority voting shareholders as part of a share unification. Our empirical results support the model predictions.     

How did the Welsh government manage to reform council tax in 2005?

Repeated calls have been made for council tax (CT) in the UK to be reformed. A ‘tyranny of the status quo’ suggests that politicians will avoid this because they fear a backlash from the losers of reform. This paper claims that the tyranny of the status quo is not a fixed law. The Welsh government revalued CT in 2005 but did not communicate the complexity of reform sufficiently. Reform requires greater efforts to communicate the complexity of winning and losing.     

How do labor adjustment costs affect corporate tax planning? Evidence from labor skills

Labor adjustment costs (LACs) are a broad concept and involve costs incurred to search, hire, train, retain, and fire employees. Using the level of labor skills as a proxy for LACs, I find that higher LACs are associated with greater tax savings. The effect is stronger for firms facing more intense competition, and firms in states that strengthen labor protection, but weaker for firms in states that restrain labor mobility. High-LAC firms avoid taxes in order to generate precautionary cash. Collectively, the evidence indicates a significant influence of frictions in labor markets (i.e., LACs) on corporate tax planning behavior.     

How effective are rewards programs in promoting payment card usage? Empirical evidence

Card issuers have mainly relied on rewards programs as their main strategy to increase usage. However, there is scarce evidence on the effectiveness of these programs. This paper is addressing two topics which could have important managerial and public policy implications: (i) it estimates the impact of rewards on the use of cards and (ii) it quantifies their economic effects in terms of the cash substitution. We find that rewards may significantly modify choice for card payments. Their economic impact also varies significantly across types of rewards and merchant activities. Additionally, rewards seem to be more effective for debit cards.     

Does the global fireman inadvertently add fuel to the fire? New evidence from institutional investors' response to IMF program announcements

Fighting global financial crises is a primary charge of the IMF. Yet it has often been criticized to have hindered rather than helped the recovery of many countries in a crisis by demanding policy changes that may not be appropriate for them in that particular moment. Such actions would tend to damage investor confidence. Using monthly data on investment in 94 developing countries by 168 institutional investors during 1996–2005, this paper re-assesses this important question. We find that the IMF has typically restored rather than reduced investor confidence.     

How do firms react to the prohibition of long-lived asset impairment reversals? Evidence from China

New Chinese Accounting Standards (CAS) released on February 15, 2006, prohibit the reversal of long-lived asset impairments, effective for reporting periods beginning January 1, 2007 and later. This development in the Chinese market provides a unique experimental setting to directly investigate how firms react to the ban on previously-allowed long-lived asset impairment reversals, especially firms that use impairment charges as “cookie jar reserves.” By contrasting write-off recognition and reversal across the pre- and post- new CAS announcement regimes, we show that firms listed on Chinese stock exchanges recognized less impairment charges during the “transition” period—after announcement of the new standard and before the effective date—than in pre-announcement periods. Meanwhile, firms with substantial previous write-downs reversed more impairment charges to achieve their earnings targets in the transition period. The new CAS also constraints “big bath” reporting by loss firms. As US GAAP prohibits these reversals and IFRS allows them, our empirical evidence depicts firms’ possible reactions in other regimes contemplating doing away with such reversals.     

Correction to: Multinational corporations and tax havens: evidence from country‑by‑country reporting

International Tax and Public Finance - The original version of this article contained a mistake in the co-author name “Javier Garcia?Bernando”.