Commentators on the private equity industry often claim that favorable tax treatment gives private equity firms advantages in the market for corporate control. But we show that tax advantages do not affect the equilibrium ownership of corporate assets when acquisition costs are fully deductible...

This paper uses affiliate level data from Swedish multinationals to examine the impact of tax treaties on both overall affiliate sales and the composition of those sales. In line with previous results, we find little evidence for an effect of treaties on the level of total sales. We do, however,...

I establish a positive relationship between family ties and civic virtues, as captured by disapproval of tax and benefit cheating, corruption, and a range of other dimensions of exploiting others for personal gain. I find that family ties are a complement to social capital, using within country...

Economists and political scientists have long been interested in factors that affect the statutory tax rate on businesses set by federal governments. In this study, we examine the impact of political and economic factors on several measures of tax rates and tax incentives offered across 19...

Taxation theory rarely takes entrepreneurship into consideration. We discuss how this omission affects conclusions derived from standard models of capital taxation when applied to entrepreneurial income. Some of the defining features of entrepreneurship often omitted by standard capital taxation...

This paper makes use of individual data for 2004 to 2008 on owners of closely-held businesses in Sweden to estimate the role of both tax and non-tax determinants in the choice to be a closely-held corporation vs. a proprietorship. While lower-income individuals face relatively neutral...

Many governments promote small businesses for the dual reasons of fostering ‘breakthrough’ innovations and employment growth. In this paper we study the effects of tax and subsidy policies on entrepreneurs’ choice of riskiness of an innovation project and on their mode of commercializing...

We study the effect of taxation on entrepreneurship, taking into account both the amount of entry and the quality of new ventures. We show that even with risk neutral agents and no tax evasion progressive taxes can increase entrepreneurial entry, while reducing average firm quality. So called...

The paper argues that cost of capital comparisons across closely held companies and entrepreneurial ventures on the one hand and widely held companies on the other, ought not to be based on an equal level assumption regarding the investors’ required rates of return, net of taxes. Theoretical...

In Europe, accounting standards prevent larger expenditures on employer-sponsored training from being treated as investments. Using Sweden as example, we discuss two consequences for training. First, the timing: training will be conducted when income is large enough for training costs to be...