Using a novel country-industry level panel database with information on newly incorporated firms in 17 European countries between 1997 and 2004, we study how taxation of corporate income affects the size of entrants at the country-industry level. Our results, that are robust to changes in...

Can tax policy foster the creation of new companies? To answer this question, we assemble a novel country-industry level panel database with data on entry (by incorporation) for 17 European countries between 1997 and 2004. Our analysis is based on recent models of how corporate taxation affects...

This paper analyses the impact of capital income taxes on financial and investment decisions of corporations.Extending Sinn's (1991) nucleus theory of the firm with debt finance, the model determines the optimal sources of finance (debt, newly issued equity or retained earnings), the optimal use...

In this paper, we study how regulators may improve upon the efficiency of their energy technology adoption programs by exploiting readily observable information to limit rent extraction by firms. Using panel data on 862 investment decisions in the Netherlands, we find that rent extraction is...

In order to meet the Kyoto targets, in the Netherlands in 2010 9% of electricity consumption should be generated from renewable resources.In this paper, we discuss and comment on the green energy policy that the Dutch government has adopted in 2001 and 2002 in order to reach this goal, and the...

This paper examines the payout policies of UK firms listed on the London Stock Exchange during the 1990s.It complements the existing literature by analyzing the trends in both dividends and total payouts (including share repurchases).In a dynamic panel data regression setting, we relate target...

This paper provides an overview of existing research on how corporate restructuring affects the wealth of creditors.Restructuring is defined as any transaction that affects the firm's underlying capital structure.Thus, it reaches well beyond asset restructuring and includes transactions such as...

We study the tax regulations in relation to dividends and capital gains over the last two decades for the UK in order to determine whether changes in tax regimes affect corporate payout policy (dividends, share repurchases, or a combination). While we can identify investors’ tax-driven...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the dividend policy of German firms is more flexible than the one of their Anglo-American counterparts.This paper analyses the decision to change the dividend for a panel of 221 German firms from 1984 to 1994.The choice of the period of study is motivated by the...

German firms pay out a lower proportion of their cash flows, but a higher proportion of their published profits than UK and US firms. We estimate partial adjustment models and report two major findings. First, German firms base their dividend decisions on cash flows rather than published...