Investment incentives and corporate tax asymmetries

Recent facts on the importance of corporate losses motivate more careful study of the impact of tax incentives for investment on firms that lose money. I model firm investment decisions in a setting featuring financing constraints and carrybacks and carryforwards of operating losses. I estimate investment responses to tax incentives allowing effects to vary with cash flows and taxable status. Results suggest that asymmetries in the corporate tax code could have made recent bonus depreciation tax incentives at most 4% less effective than they would have been if all firms were fully taxable. Cash flows have more important effects on the impact of tax incentives. Recent declines in cash flows would predict a 24% decrease in the effectiveness of bonus depreciation. Results thus suggest that tax incentives have the smallest impact on investment exactly when they are most likely to be put in place — during downturns in economic activity when cash flows are low.     

Search costs and corporate income tax competition

If a small cost applies for learning the corporate tax rules in different countries, this can completely eliminate tax competition. This modified version of the Diamond paradox and can also explain the empirically observed tax cuts cum base broadening.     

Transfer pricing rules and corporate tax competition

A multinational parent sells a non-marketed commodity to a foreign subsidiary that uses the product as an input to produce a product it then sells. The subsidiary is controlled by a local managing partner whose compensation consists of a lump-sum payment plus a share of the subsidiary's profit. The parent chooses an optimal transfer price taking into account incentives for the subsidiary's managing partner and taxes. Home and host governments impose corporate income taxes on the parent and subsidiary's respective profits subject to a transfer pricing rule (e.g. cost plus price method or comparable profit method). A Nash equilibrium is derived for effective tax rates chosen by home and host governments. We then examine harmonization and suggest that tax rates would be reduced.     

Brotherhood of competition: Foreign Direct Investment and domestic mergers

We examine the effects of mergers on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and on shaping national policies regarding FDI. In this work we develop a partial equilibrium model of an oligopolistic industry in which a number of domestic and foreign firms compete in the market for a homogeneous good in a host country. It is assumed that the number of foreign firms is endogenous and can be affected by the government policy in the host country. The government sets the policy (subsidies) to maximise social welfare. We allow domestic mergers. Our main results suggest that when the host country government imposes discriminatory lump-sum subsidy in favor of foreign firms, a merger of domestic firms will increase the number of FDI if the subsidy level is exogenous. With an endogenous level of subsidy, a merger of domestic firms will decrease (increase) the welfare if the domestic firms are more (less) efficient.     

Interindustry flows and the incidence of the corporate income tax

This paper examines the empirical importance of interindustry flows in the incidence of the corporate income tax. I find that the omission of interindustry flows from general equilibrium tax incidence models can lead to serious errors, given their actual magnitude.     

Licensing of New Technology Versus Direct Foreign Investment: A General Equilibrium Analysis

In a general equilibrium model with sector-specific capital, a country which licenses new technology and imports capital itself would have lower national income than if it permitted direct investment by foreigners with rights to the technology. However, the reverse can be true if capital is mobile between sectors. Thus, licensing is a poor policy in the short run but can be a good policy in the long run.     

Firms' financial choices and thin capitalization rules under corporate tax competition

Thin capitalization rules have become an important element in the corporate tax systems of developed countries. This paper sets up a model where national and multinational firms choose tax-efficient financial structures and countries compete for multinational firms through statutory tax rates and thin capitalization rules that limit the tax-deductibility of internal debt flows. In a symmetric tax competition equilibrium, each country chooses inefficiently low tax rates and inefficiently lax thin capitalization rules. We show that a coordinated tightening of thin capitalization rules benefits both countries, even though it intensifies competition via tax rates. When countries differ in size, the smaller country not only chooses the lower tax rate but also the more lenient thin capitalization rule.     

Foreign direct investment,tax competition and social expenditure

The aim of this paper is to make a first step towards studying the role of social expenditure and its interaction with corporate taxation in determining the destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Using panel data for 18 OECD countries and measuring the extent of social welfare policies by the (public social expenditure)/GDP ratio, we find strong support for the conjecture that redistributive social welfare state policies are valued by multinationals as, for instance, they may signal a government's commitment to social stability.     

Foreign Debt,Foreign Direct Investment and Volatility

We investigate how foreign debt and foreign direct investment (FDI) affect the growth and welfare of a stochastically growing small open economy. First, we find that foreign debt influences the growth of domestic wealth by lowering the cost of capital, while FDI affects the country's welfare by providing an additional source of permanent income. Second, a decline in domestic investment may improve domestic welfare as FDI replaces the gap. Even when the welfare deteriorates, its magnitude is mitigated, leaving more room for discretionary fiscal policy. Third, a fiscal policy aimed to stabilize domestic output fluctuations needs to be conducted not to crowd out the welfare benefit of FDI too much. Fourth, an economy with both types of foreign capital experiences wider welfare swings by external volatility shocks than the one with foreign debt alone, while the welfare effects from domestic volatility shocks are mitigated. The welfare effects of fiscal shocks are much smaller with both types of foreign capital. Lastly, the first-best labor income tax covers the government absorption by the labor's share of total output, and the capital income tax covers the rest. Investment is penalized or subsidized depending on the social marginal cost-gain differential.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Taxes

Abstract. This paper studies the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental policy stringency in a two-country model with trade costs, where FDI could be unilateral and bilateral and both governments address local pollution through environmental taxes. We show that FDI does not give rise to ecological dumping because the host country has an incentive to shift rents away from the source country toward the host country. Environmental policy strategies and welfare effects are studied under the assumption that parameter values support FDI to be profitable.     

Regional Blocs and Foreign Direct Investment

The paper examines the impact of the emergence of regional blocs on the patterns of interbloc and intrabloc trade when firms have the option to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI). For exogenously given external tariffs, when firms have the option to engage in FDI, all interbloc trade may cease—complete trade diversion that is replaced by interbloc FDI investment creation. In such an event the volume of world trade declines but this is more than offset by the increase in world output due to direct investment. The paper also investigates the optimal tariff that a trading bloc levies on imports from nonmember countries. The tariffs are restricted by the option to engage in two‐way direct investment; hence, the regional blocs are hampered from mutually harming one another through an escalation in the tariff war. Finally, the formation of two regional blocs enhances the welfare of all countries.     

Market Structure and Foreign Direct Investment

During the last decade the extent of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in the US has increased dramatically. An important aspect of industries where most FDI takes place is their high level of concentration. This paper investigates how strategic interactions among domestic and foreign producers influence the structure of the industry. Especially, it focuses on the foreign firms' choice between exporting versus servicing these markets by investing in a plant located in the host country when facing competition from a domestic oligopoly. The empirical investigation reveals that the relationship between FDI and tariffs is not as simple as previously thought. In highly concentrated industries, where strategic behavior may play an important role, high tariffs rather than low tariffs may lead to less FDI and more imports.     

外商直接投资与金融创新

改革开放20多年以为，中国与世界经济一体化迅速加快，而外商直接投资已经成为中国经济快速增长的关键因素之一。外商直接投资促进了所有制结构多元化的变迁，对中国经济制度的市场化变革提供了持续的推动力。虽然我国金融市场化改革取得了很大成就，但是金融结构和金融制度安排并没有发生实质性的变化。随着中国加入WTO，外商直接投资的深度与广度将得到很大发展，这将推动我国金融结构的金融制度安排和创新。     

外商直接投资再创新高

<正> 中国“入世”的第一年,我国利用外商直接投资更加保持了较高的增长势头,据外经贸部统计,今年1至6月全国新批设立外商投资企业15155家,比去年同期增长26.39％;合同外资金额439.9亿美元,同比增长31.47％;实际使用外资金额245.79亿美元,同比增长18.69％。截至今年6月底,全国累计批准外商投资企业405180家,合同利用外资金额7892.81亿美元,实际使用外资金额4198.02亿美元。主要指标分析 1.增长幅度较大。在2001年我国利用外资进入恢复性增长及中国加入世贸组织后的半年时间里,外商直接投资以前所未有的速度和规模涌入中国。2002年1～6月我国利用     

Controlled Openness and Foreign Direct Investment

The paper investigates why a developing country may adopt a partial reform. A country is considered where the ruling elite (referred to as state capital) prevents the entry of foreign capital, and taxes the private sector before reform. A higher productivity of foreign capital always increases the attractiveness of a partial reform under which state capital can control the inflow of foreign capital, but can reduce the attractiveness of a full reform under which the entry of foreign capital is unregulated. Hence, state capital's control over foreign capital may be a necessary condition for the reform to take place at all.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Contract Enforcement

A long-standing deterrent to foreign direct investment in developing countries is weak enforcement of binding contracts. A local firm may learn business skills from a cooperating multinational firm and subsequently do business on its own based on the acquired skills. In a two-period, double-moral-hazard model, non-binding contracts are shown to be preferred by all parties, implying that contract enforcement is unnecessary. Our results shed light on the puzzling phenomenon that substantial FDI has been carried out under contractual arrangements in developing countries in which contract enforcement is problematic. They can also explain some interesting stylized facts on contractual joint ventures between multinationals and local firms in the early stage of an economic transition.J. Comp. Econom.,December 1998, 26(4), pp. 761–782. School of Business, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong.     

Labor Training and Foreign Direct Investment

Evidence shows that most foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from developed to developed countries (North–North) in skilled labor‐intensive industries. This paper builds a model that incorporates labor training into the proximity–concentration tradeoffs to analyze the entry mode of multinationals to a foreign country. Production requires both skilled labor and unskilled labor.. A multinational pursuing FDI needs to provide training to some workers in the host country to equip them with skills that are specific to the production of the firm. Labor training and skill specificity lead to contract friction. It is shown that in skilled labor‐intensive industries, FDI increases along with the economic development level of the host country, whereas in unskilled labor‐intensive industries, the reverse is true. This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the empirical findings on the prevalence of North–North FDI in skilled labor‐industries and North–South FDI in unskilled labor‐intensive industries.     

外商直接投资与国家自主创新

本文将FDI(外商直接投资)和LICENSIING(技术许可)作为其潜在的渠道,建立了技术引进的模型.此模型的一个重要特征是模型中的主要假设,模型的结论以及模型的政策意义都与实际经验的观察相一致.对于包括中国在内的发展中国家(LDC)而言,技术许可比外商直接投资所带来的技术外溢更有效,在考虑制定何种政策以达到社会福利的最优化时,人力资本的水平起到了决定性的作用.     

Direct Foreign Investment Versus Licensing

This paper examines the choice among alternative modes of direct foreign investment, namely, the wholly owned subsidiary (the S option) and joint venture (the J option), vis-à-vis licensing (the L option). The focus is on the role of moral hazard, difference in risk attitude and the prospect of the host country's policy toward the venture. An apparently surprising result is that riskiness of the project is a factor against the J option. Moreover, in the absence of policy intervention, L is dominated by either S or J, whereas if there is an anticipation of policy intervention (i.e., there is a policy moral hazard) L may emerge as the best option.     

Competing for Foreign Direct Investment

The paper analyzes 'subsidy games' between countries in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from a third country. The winner of this game results from the interaction of two factors, relative country size and employment gains from FDI: a large (or 'central') country is more likely to attract FDI, and so is a country with high unemployment. The subsidy equilibrium is compared with two alternative solutions: zero subsidies and first-best subsidies. It is shown that total welfare may be greater under subsidy competition than under zero subsidies: the gains from efficient location implied by subsidy competition may more than outweigh the losses from higher subsidies. Moreover, departing from subsidy competition to zero subsidies or to first-best subsidies (without side payments) implies a gain to one country and a loss to the other. This suggests that it may be difficult to reach a consensus to move away from the status quo of subsidy competition.