We sketch a model according to which tax havens attract corporate income generated in corrupted countries. In our framework, tax havens have two opposite effects on welfare. First, tax havens' services have a positive effect on welfare through encouraging investment by firms fearing...

This essay critically revisits the roles and influences of tax havens in the world economy. It combines various massages of available studies in one scheme, documents a number of observations, and proposes several issues for future research

We estimate spillover effects of a fiscal shock in one member country in the euro area on outputs of the rest of the members, using a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model. We compare the effects of a domestic fiscal shock with those of a similar size area-wide shock expressed as a weighted...

Tax provisions favoring corporate debt over equity finance (“debt bias”) are widely recognized as a risk to financial stability. This paper explores whether and how thin-capitalization rules, which restrict interest deductibility beyond a certain amount, affect corporate debt ratios and...

This paper documents that tax havens play a prominent role in international service trade and investigates the nature of this role. We employ a firm-level dataset with detailed information about service trade and foreign affiliates for virtually all multinational firms in Germany, which allows...

Theory recommends aligning the tax treatment of debt and equity. A few countries, notably Belgium, have introduced an allowance for corporate equity (ACE) to achieve tax neutrality. We study the effects of adopting an ACE on debt financing, passive investment, and active investment of...

A number of recent studies regress a “narratively” identified measure of a macroeconomic shock directly on an outcome variable. In this note, we argue that this approach can be viewed as the reduced-form regression of an instrumental variable approach in which the narrative time series is...

We estimate cross-border spillover effects of fiscal consolidation episodes on output, bilateral trade flows, interest rate, and the exchange rate, employing the new IMF action-based fiscal consolidation data. Results indicate a negative effect of foreign fiscal consolidation policies on...

This paper provides empirical evidence on two potential costs of shared ownership of German affiliates abroad. First, in periods of currency crises, wholly-owned affiliates, in contrast to partially-owned affiliates, seem to circumvent financial constraints by accessing capital from their parent...

A number of recent studies regress a “narratively” identified measure of a macroeconomic shock directly on an outcome variable. In this note, we argue that this approach can be viewed as the reduced-form regression of an instrumental variable approach in which the narrative time series is...