Does Public Country-by-Country Reporting Deter Tax Avoidance and Income Shifting? Evidence from the European Banking Industry*

In this study, we examine the effect of increased tax transparency on the tax planning behavior of European banks. In 2014, the European Union introduced public country-by-country reporting requirements to the banking industry. Treating this new requirement as an exogenous shock, we find limited evidence consistent with a decline in income shifting by the banks' financial affiliates in the post-adoption period (starting from 2015). We do not, however, find robust evidence of a significant change in the consolidated book effective tax rates among the affected banks. Our findings suggest that increased transparency from public country-by-country reporting can deter tax-motivated income shifting but that it did not appear to materially influence the banks' overall tax avoidance. Our findings have policy implications for the ongoing debate between the European Parliament, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and accounting standard-setting bodies on whether to require multinationals to publish country-by-country reports.     

Employer responses to union organising: patterns and effects

This article presents original research on employer responses to trade union organising campaigns in the United Kingdom. The evidence indicates that there is no single response, with employers in some cases seeking to block and in others support union activity. These different patterns are strongly path dependent and reflect the prior degree of exposure to trade unionism of workplaces targeted for organising. Another finding is that employer responses co-vary with union approaches to organising, such that when the employer adopts adversarial tactics so does the union. The militancy of both parties, it seems, is mutually reinforcing. Finally, the evidence points to substantial influence of employer responses over the outcomes of organising. When employers are supportive then campaigns tend to be more successful, measured on a range of criteria. When the employer is hostile unions find it difficult to make progress and encounter particular difficulties in securing recognition.     

Two-sector perspectives on the effects of payroll tax cuts and their financing

This paper analyzes the consequences of lifting from labor some of the burden of taxation in a life-cycle two-sector setup where a consumption good is produced alongside a capital good. The analysis focuses on the implications of alternative ways of financing payroll tax cuts in closed and small-open neoclassical economies. In our models payroll tax cuts do not necessarily stimulate hours worked in the stationary state. We show, for example, that in the closed economy –paradoxically– long-run aggregate labor hours and the capital stock will be reduced if labor tax proceeds are replaced by capital taxation. If instead government purchases of the capital good (or government labor services) are decreased, manhours are left unchanged in the long-run, while capital formation is spurred. In the small-open economy it is only if the offsets are a fall in entitlement spending or a rise in the wealth tax that aggregate manhours are increased —otherwise steady state hours worked are invariant.