The impact of government's fundings and tax incentives on industrial R&D investments—Empirical evidences from industrial sectors in Shanghai

This paper is an empirical assessment of the impact of government's direct fundings and tax incentives on R&D investments of industrial sectors in Shanghai. The analysis is based on a panel consisting of 32 industrial sectors for the period 1993–2002.The general finding is that both government's direct fundings as an incentive stimulating policy instrument and industrial sectors' own fundings in science and technology activities have positive effects on the industrial R&D investment. The stability of the policy further enhances the positive effect. However, the effect of the tax incentives is not straightforward. We observe that the enterprises in the industrial sectors tend to switch to more general and less costly science and technology activities, which can be regarded as a less desirable effect of the tax incentives.     

税收优惠对区域创新效率的影响效应——以云贵川渝为例

运用2009—2021年云贵川渝相关数据,采用系统GMM方法对税收优惠激励区域创新效率的效应进行实证分析,并就经济发展水平展开异质性分析,实证结果表明,税收优惠能显著提升云贵川渝地区的创新效率;经济发达地区,税收优惠的创新激励效果更明显,经济欠发达地区,税收优惠对区域创新效率无显著影响。根据实证分析得出的结论,提出相应的政策建议,完善税收优惠政策、制定差异化的税收优惠政策等。     

纳税信用评级制度与企业创新——“赏善”比“罚恶”更有效？

前期研究证实纳税稽查、反避税等强制性税收征管可以规范企业纳税行为,对企业产生"约束效应",而不同于以往的强制性税收征管,纳税信用评级制度具有一定的激励性。由此,文章以2014年颁布实施的纳税信用评级制度刻画了激励性税收征管,基于这一新的视角,分析了激励性税收征管对企业创新投资的影响。利用2010-2017年沪深A股上市企业研发支出数据,文章采用PSM-DID模型估计了激励性税收征管对企业创新投资影响的"净效应"。结果表明,纳税信用评级制度实施后,纳税信用等级为A的企业,其创新投资显著增加,且这一效应在媒体关注程度低的企业、非国有企业及高新技术企业中更加明显。进一步的作用机制检验发现,激励性税收征管一方面通过增加信贷融资规模进而对企业的创新投资产生积极作用,另一方面通过增加市场关注压力进而对企业的创新投资带来负面影响,但由于积极作用要远大于负面影响,从而激励性税收征管表现出对企业创新投资的"激励效应"。     

提升纺织企业节能减排水平的财税政策研究——以浙江省为例

在实地调研基础上总结了影响浙江纺织企业节能减排的资源、环境、经济与社会因素,分析了浙江纺织企业节能减排的困境及其财税政策的不足,提出了促进浙江纺织企业节能减排的财政支出政策与税收政策的建议:在财政支出政策的选择上应注重综合运用政府直接投资、政府采购、财政补贴和转移支付等手段;在税收政策的选择上应综合运用税收优惠政策、差别性的环保税、产品税和消费税政策等。     

税收优惠对先进制造业集群创新的影响

选取2006—2021年我国A股上市公司作为样本,选取19个省市的先进制造业15个具有代表性的行业数据,研究税收优惠如何影响先进制造业集群创新水平。研究发现：税收优惠与先进制造业集群创新水平呈正向关系,增值税优惠影响更大;非国企税收优惠对创新的影响大于国企,且更显著;税收优惠对先进制造业集群创新存在滞后性,企业需要时间充分利用政策进行创新。鉴于此,应坚持实施税收优惠,重点强化非国企税收优惠,精准把控税收优惠滞后性。     

Evaluating the Relative Impact of Fiscal Incentives and Trade Policies on the Returns to Manufacturing in Taiwan, 1955–1995*

In the present paper, an integrated cash flow model is developed to examine the relative impact of tax incentives, financial subsidies, and macroeconomic variables on the profitability of industrial investments. It allows for the variables in the model to interact with each other. An application of the model is carried out for Taiwan, which has implemented a variety of fiscal incentives over the past 40 years. The principal policy conclusion is that trade and macroeconomic policies are much more important than income tax incentives or subsidized finance policies in determining the success of Taiwan's industrialization process. The effects of all of the fiscal incentives are found to be much smaller than those of the trade policies or the fundamental trends in macroeconomic variables such as the movement of the real exchange rate and the real wage rate.     

Marginal and Average Tax Rates and the Incentive for Self-Employment

The paper examines how the incentives for individuals to take up self-employment, rather than paid employment, are influenced by the marginal and average income tax rate. A model is developed in which an individual optimally chooses the supply of labor effort and the amount of tax to evade. Assuming that remuneration is more responsive to effort but that the opportunities for evasion are greater in self-employment, we find a negative relationship between self-employment and the marginal tax rate but a positive relationship with the average rate. This is supported by empirical evidence for 15 OECD countries over the 1980s.     

The effectiveness of supply-side tax cuts under alternative political models

Conclusion Unless a supply-side tax cut is accompanied by a genuine limit on government spending, there are two relative price effects that need to be taken into consideration. The case for a supply-side tax cut has been based on the relative price shift between consumption versus investment goods. However, investment incentives created by this change in relative prices may be completely stymied by the political response to an accompanying relative price shift between publicly and privately supplied goods. It is the conclusion of this paper that the latter relative price effect will be more important in a political process controlled by the median voter than in one controlled by special interests.Based on the conclusion, it is interesting to speculate that those who model government as responsive to the median voter, [e.g., Meltzer and Richard (1981)] will be less enthusiastic about supply-side tax cuts not accompanied by spending limits than those who model government as controlled by special interests [e.g., Niskanen (1971)]. Another, and possibly safer, conjecture is to reverse directions and conclude that enthusiastic supply-siders will be those who believe that government size is largely determined by the demands of special interests and as a consequence is excessive.     

A fisherian analysis of individual retirement accounts

Conclusions This paper has employed a Fisherian analysis of intertemporal choice to evaluate the use of IRA's. The analysis shows that with perfect capital markets assumptions, the presence of IRA's will generate no other effect on savings than would a simple tax rabate. Further, it shows that if the tax revenue loss due to IRA's is not accompanied by an expenditure reduction, but is financed with taxes or borrowing, rational households will still employ IRA's, but their effect on intertemporal choice will be nil. The analysis also shows that IRA's do act as a savings incentive to the extent that there are market imperfections, specifically to the degree that transactions costs are important. However, empirical evidence from the literature does not lend firm support to this possibility. The conclusion is that a market imperfection is not a firm basis on which to construct savings incentives. Finally, one can note that the same analysis applies to any tax-based savings incentive that is designed to operate by lowering the tax on interest income. The reason for this finding is that the provision of tax sheltered interest income, along with the deductibility of interest on borrowing, creates general tax arbitrage opportunities for households and that tax arbitrage opportunities do not, in general, generate greater savings in an intertemporal choice model. It follows that significant restriction or elimination of the deductibility of interest on borrowing is a prerequisite for IRA's and other tax based savings incentives to produce their intended effect.     

Do R&D tax incentives work? Firm-level evidence from China

Tax incentives have been used worldwide to encourage firm R&D, but there is little evidence on their effectiveness as a policy tool in developing countries. We use a panel dataset of Chinese listed companies covering 2007 to 2013 to assess the effects of tax incentives on firm R&D expenditures and analyze how institutional conditions shape these effects. Our results show that tax incentives motivate R&D expenditures for our sample firms. A 10% reduction in R&D user costs leads firms to increase R&D expenditures by 3.97% in the short run. We also find considerable effect heterogeneity: Tax incentives significantly stimulate R&D in private firms but have little influence on state-owned enterprises' R&D expenditures. Moreover, the effects of tax incentives are more pronounced for private firms without political connections. Hence, reducing political intervention complements tax incentives' capacity to foster firm R&D in developing countries.     

Tax‐Adjusted q Model with Intangible Assets: Theory and Evidence from Temporary Investment Tax Incentives

We propose a tax‐adjusted q model with physical and intangible assets and estimate the effect of bonus depreciation in the United States in the early 2000s. We find that investment responds moderately to tax incentives, but allowing for heterogeneity reveals that intangible‐intensive firms respond more than physical‐intensive firms and that this difference is accentuated among large firms. Accounting for intangible assets increases the estimated total investment response from 3.7 to 14.3% of aggregate investment in 2000 among the largest 500 firms. Our results suggest that understanding the behavior of large and intangible‐intensive firms matters for investment policy.     

The value-added tax reform and labor market outcomes: Firm-level evidence from China

The tax incentives designed to stimulate firm investment may have a large and unexpected impact on labor market outcomes. Using a comprehensive data set on Chinese manufacturing firms during the period 1998–2007 with a difference-in-differences approach, we examine the impact of the value-added tax reform in 2004 on the firm-level labor market outcomes. We find that firms in eligible industries and pilot regions (treated firms) enjoying lower costs of purchasing fixed assets under the reform tended to increase capital investment and reduce employment simultaneously relative to firms that did not have tax incentives (the control firms). Compared with the control firms, the treated firms became more capital intensive but had declines in labor share in value added and average wage. We also find that the employment adjustment is associated with increase in the share of skilled workers in terms of engineers and technicians, but not workers with a college degree or higher.     

Do Economic Effects Justify the Use of Fiscal Incentives?

The siting of a large, new firm is often presumed to give rise to significant economic and tax benefits to the community of location. This presumption serves as the basis for the granting of lucrative economic development incentives to footloose businesses. This article examines whether large, mobile firms generate significant net benefits for the region of location. Panel data and nonrandom estimation techniques are applied to a primary database of large firms that made location decisions in the 1980s to explore the impact of location on regional economic performance, The empirical analysis explores different treatment regions (both effects within the county and the metropolitan statistical area [MSA] of location) and different control regions. The results show that large firms fail to produce significant net benefits for their host communities, calling into question the high-stakes bidding war over jobs and investment.     

税收优惠对企业创新的影响——基于先进制造业企业的实证分析

正确评价税收政策对先进制造业企业创新的影响具有重要意义。以2010—2019年中国A股先进制造业上市公司为研究样本,实证考察税收优惠与先进制造业企业创新的关系。研究发现：税收优惠对于先进制造业企业的创新具有激励效应,与所得税优惠相比,增值税优惠激励作用更为明显;区域异质性分析发现增值税优惠激励先进制造业企业创新呈现中、东、西部递减的状态,所得税优惠激励创新呈现东、西、中递减的状态。为提高税收优惠政策对于先进制造业企业创新的激励效应,提出完善税收优惠政策的建议。     

征税能抑制企业涉房投资吗——兼论“脱实向虚”的另一条路径

近年来企业过度持有不动产的涉房投资倾向引发广泛关注，也背离了"脱虚向实"的政策导向。文章基于土地增值二次分配理论，利用2007-2019年我国沪、深两市上市公司微观数据考察了持有环节和转出环节税收对企业涉房投资行为的影响。实证结果显示：因为税基不能随房地产市场价值灵活升高，造成持有环节的房土两税表现出一定的累退性特征，从而无法有效抑制企业涉房投资；相比而言，转出环节的土地增值税能够显著抑制企业涉房投资倾向。进一步基于省级宏观面板数据的非对称反应模型估计结果显示，当前各地区土地增值税的征管力度受到地方政府的刻意操控，出现了相邻省份之间的标杆竞争现象，特别是省份间的竞低效应尤其突出，这对有效发挥土地增值税的作用产生了不利影响。文章的研究对未来进一步完善税制改革和引导企业投资"脱虚向实"具有一定的参考意义。     

Corporate In‐house Tax Departments*

In‐house human capital tax investment is a significant input to a firm's tax decisions. Yet, due to the lack of data on corporate in‐house tax departments, there is little empirical evidence on how tax departments are associated with tax planning and compliance outcomes. We expect the size of tax departments to be positively associated with the effectiveness of tax planning and compliance. Using hand‐collected data on the number of corporate tax employees in S&P 1500 firms over the 2009–2014 period, we find that firms with larger tax departments are associated with lower and less volatile cash effective tax rates. Furthermore, using tax employees' specialization, we identify tax departments' relative focus on planning or compliance and document a trade‐off between tax avoidance and tax risk. Specifically, tax departments with more of a tax planning focus have incrementally greater tax avoidance but higher tax risk, whereas tax departments with more of a tax compliance focus have incrementally lower tax risk but higher tax rates. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by looking inside the “black box” of corporate tax departments and shedding light on the importance of human capital tax investment for tax outcomes.     

Exploring ‘onward-journey’ ODI strategies in China's private sector businesses

Are the internationalization strategies of China's private businesses different from those of state-owned businesses? To date, little systematic empirical research addresses this question, despite the now well-established arguments that market and institutional imperfections influence the outward foreign direct investment (ODI) of China's state sector MNEs. Why is so little known about private sector foreign direct investment? One important reason is that private companies have gone to considerable lengths to conceal their activities by using offshore holding companies in tax havens. This paper, using a sample of offshore listed companies that are privately controlled, investigates what we dub ‘onward-journeying’ – foreign direct investment undertaken via tax havens. In doing so it further explores the ODI strategies of some of China's most successful private companies.     

R&D Investments and Tax Incentives: The Role of Intra-Firm Cross-Border Collaboration*

U.S. multinational corporations increasingly use intra-firm, cross-border research collaboration to disperse R&D across different countries. This paper investigates the implications of such collaboration on the abilities of firms to garner benefits from R&D tax incentives. We find that the association between R&D intensity and tax incentives is three to five times larger when firms have extensive cross-border collaboration connected to a country. We also find that the effect is stronger when local intellectual property protection is weaker and when local innovation resources are higher. Our results suggest that cross-border collaboration helps firms achieve more tax-efficient R&D investments both by reducing the nontax frictions posed by weak intellectual property protection and by increasing the nontax benefits of foreign R&D.     

The Effect of Changes in Income Shifting on Affiliate Managers' Internal Reporting Decisions*†

This study examines the interplay between tax and internal reporting incentives among affiliates of multinational corporations (MNCs). MNCs face limited information flows that may prevent affiliates' performance metrics to be responsive immediately to changes in the firm's tax planning. Using granular data of affiliates belonging to MNCs from 21 European countries, our study provides new empirical evidence of affiliate internal reporting responses induced by changing tax plans. When high-tax-rate countries tighten income shifting rules, we first document that income shifting is reduced and low-tax-rate affiliates have less income. Second, we predict and document that managers of these low-tax-rate affiliates offset this decrease in profits by managing upwards a key performance metric: affiliate earnings. Our results are consistent with firms not quickly adjusting the affiliate managers' incentives in the face of changing tax planning strategies, and affiliates managing reported earnings to offset the effect of changes in the tax planning of the firm. Cross-sectional analyses provide further evidence consistent with the theory underlying the main tests. The results support the policy of tightening income shifting rules when the objective is to reduce income shifting, and firms' central management would benefit from considering the implications of changing tax plans on the assessment of local managers.     

South Africa's economics of education: A stocktaking and an agenda for the way forward

This paper reviews some of the existing economics of education literature from the perspective of South Africa's education policymaking needs. It also puts forward a suggested research agenda for future work. The review is arranged according to five areas of research: rates of return, production functions, teacher incentives, benefit incidence analysis and cross-country comparisons. Production functions, especially if translated to cost-effectiveness models, can point to important policy solutions. Teacher incentives is a policy area that is in need of a better theoretical and empirical basis. Rates of return are difficult for policymakers to interpret, but suggest a need for a qualification below the Grade 12 level. While benefit incidence analysis can demonstrate large improvements in the equity of public financing, cross-country comparisons reveal that not only is the distribution of schooling outcomes particularly unequal, on average it is well below what the country's level of development would predict.