Capital, corporate income taxes, and catastrophe insurance

We provide estimates of the equity capital needed and the resulting tax costs incurred when supplying catastrophe insurance/reinsurance using a partial equilibrium model that incorporates a specific loss distribution for US catastrophe losses. After consideration of insurer investment in tax-exempt securities, tax loss carry-back/forward provisions, and personal taxes, our results imply that the tax costs of equity finance alone have a substantial effect on the cost of supplying catastrophe reinsurance. These results help explain a variety of industry developments that reduce tax costs. Also, when coupled with non-tax costs of capital, these results help explain the limited scope of catastrophe insurance/reinsurance.     

Public acceptance of and heterogeneity in behavioral beach trip responses to offshore wind farm development in Catalonia (Spain)

A combined travel cost – contingent behaviour survey of residents and tourists in Catalonia is conducted on-site to examine the effects on beach recreational demand of developing an offshore wind farm (OWF) project. The survey considers four potential OWF scenarios with different degrees of visual impact. We allow for heterogeneity in trip preferences among individuals and control for on-site sampling through the use of a random parameters negative binomial (RPNB) model and a Multivariate Poisson log-normal (MPLN) model, respectively. The welfare measures derived from the RPNB model relate to the current beach users only, whereas those from the MPLN model refer to the general population of residents and tourists in Catalonia. The results show the importance of the specific place of location of the OWF project and how the installation of wind turbines would significantly decrease the demand for trips, depending on their degree of visual impacts, leading to a substantial welfare loss. However, the results also show that the project mainly would cause a displacement of trips to other beaches within Catalonia rather than outside Catalonia and that the welfare per trip measures generated by the RPNB and MPLN models substantially differ. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Beyond Tax Avoidance: Offshore Firms’ Institutional Environment and Financial Reporting Quality*

We explore how firms’ operations in Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) through subsidiaries or affiliates affect the quality of financial reporting. Using a unique and large sample of firms that have headquarters in the 15 countries with the strictest legal regimes and have subsidiaries or affiliates in OFCs, we find that such firms exhibit lower financial reporting quality than comparable firms without OFC operations. We also find that as OFC characteristics become more prevalent, firms are more likely to engage in both accrual‐based and real earnings management. More importantly, after disentangling OFC characteristics into the opportunity for tax avoidance, regulation arbitrage and secrecy policies, we find that beyond tax avoidance, regulation arbitrage and the secrecy policies of OFCs significantly affect financial reporting quality. The causal effect of OFC operations is supported by the analysis of financial reporting quality when firms set up OFC operations. Our findings are robust to various additional tests addressing potential endogeneity issues. We conclude that the assessment of a firm's institutional environment must encompass the registration status of its subsidiaries or affiliates as well as its own.     

天津承接离岸服务外包的SWOT分析及对策研究

离岸服务外包是全球范围内掀起的新一轮产业转移浪潮。文章深入分析了天津服务外包产业的发展现状,采用SWOT分析法总结天津承接离岸服务外包业的优势、劣势、机遇和挑战,分别从政府和企业的角度提出天津发展离岸服务外包的对策及建议。     

关于构建滨海新区离岸金融市场的思考

离岸金融市场是金融自由化、国际化的产物,目前已经成为现代金融的重要组成部分,对国际金融产生了举足轻重的影响。文章以天津滨海新区为例,通过比较国际上各离岸金融市场的发展模式,结合目前离岸金融业的现状,分析滨海新区离岸金融发展中存在的问题,提出促进离岸金融业发展的政策建议以及有效监管的手段,使滨海新区的离岸金融市场建立在稳健的基础之上。     

Understanding offshoring: A research framework based on disintegration, location and externalization advantages

We present an analytical framework explaining offshoring in this paper. We address the question: why do firms offshore their business functions? Given the growing prevalence of offshoring as a dominant business practice in the world of global business, this question merits further research attention. We propose that firms embark on offshoring when they perceive three sets of interrelated advantages: disintegration advantages (D), location-specific resourcing advantages (L) and externalization advantages (E). Theories from multiple disciplines form the foundation of Disintegration–Location–Externalization (DLE) framework. Implications for managers, government policy makers and recommendations for future research are explored.     

Offshoring: Dimensions and diffusion of a new business concept

In order to leverage global cost differentials, companies are increasingly turning to offshoring. Nevertheless, discussions in research and practice on offshoring are characterized by the lack of a common definition as well as a theoretically grounded explanation for this phenomenon. This article presents an explicit definition in order to provide a stringent understanding of the term offshoring along the dimensions of contractual/legal arrangement and geographic location. Further, the driving forces of offshoring are analysed on the environmental and company levels. The article closes with a discussion of managerial implications and an outlook on aspects for further research.     

Mobile people, mobile capital and tax neutrality: Sustaining a market for Offshore Finance Centres

This paper examines the self-reported effects on business performance, sustainability and confidence following international initiatives to regulate Offshore Finance Centres (OFCs). Since the late 1990s small countries and territories have been encouraged and pressured by multilateral organisations and supranational institutions to exchange information on civil and criminal tax matters. Interview based research in Australia, Andorra, Guernsey, Samoa and Singapore has been carried out to determine how OFC clients have reacted to these initiatives along with their impacts on the offshore sector, including local economies and societies. This paper shows that these international programs have caused contraction and reorganisation in leading OFCs. However, their diverse clientele and access to established markets for global financial services continues to make them attractive locales for fund management, trusts, captive insurance and private banking. The effects on OFCs located in smaller, developing countries have been much more severe, with reports that these jurisdictions are facing major problems sustaining a share of the worldwide market for financial services and products. This suggests that because of the uneven consequences of international efforts to regulate offshore finance in selected jurisdictions, these initiatives may actually increase tax competition rather than reduce it, at least in the short term. For multilateral policies to be effective, it may well be necessary for wealthy and poor nations, including OFCs (which include some of the world's poorest and wealthiest jurisdictions) to determine if tax competition contributes to or ameliorates the inconsistencies and contradictions of globalisation and the uneven development that it produces on a worldwide scale.     

广西钦州保税港区离岸金融业务发展研究

广西钦州保税港区作为我国中西部沿海地区唯一的保税港区,是我国目前开放程度最高、政策最优惠、功能最齐全、区位优势最明显的海关特殊监管区。随着北部湾经济区开放开发步伐加快、钦州保税港区开港运营以及诸多大型企业不断入驻,离岸金融业务已成为钦州保税港区发展的迫切需要。基于此,本课题在借鉴天津、上海等地发展离岸金融业务的经验基础上,研究钦州保税港区发展离岸金融业务的可行性,进而确定离岸金融业务发展模式和定位,最后提出推进钦州保税港区离岸金融业务发展的对策建议。     

发展香港人民币离岸中心研究

随着香港人民币存款规模快速增长,香港作为人民币离岸中心的角色不断强化.在人民币国际化的进程中,香港应把握这一有利机遇,推动人民币离岸中心建设.为此,建议香港发展场内人民币NDF市场、建立人民币市场机制,完善支付结算系统、加强基础设施建设,促进跨境贸易以人民币计价结算.另一方面,建议设立粤港人民币FDI项目表,加快建设香港人民币债券市场,建立人民币境外投资平台,提升人民币作为海外投资货币的功能.在香港建设人民币离岸中心的过程中,应从避免推出高杠杆比例产品、防范流动性风险、提高信息透明度、培养掌握同情的金融专才、提高金融基础设施的实力等角度,加强风险管理.