The paper investigates the role of holding companies and conduit entities in German inbound and outbound FDI. It identifies the relevant conduit countries that act as stepping stones. Several tax and non-tax factors for the set-up of indirect structures are empirically identified. Withholding...

This paper reviews the recent literature on the relocation of headquarters (HQs). Overall results show that full and direct international relocations of corporate HQs are rare events. However, there is a trend that MNEs increasingly unbundle their HQs so as to spread their different HQs...

This paper analyzes tax/subsidy competition and transfer pricing regulation between governments involved in trade through a multinational firm and a joint venture using an input provided by the former.The paper takes into account the fact that in absence of bargaining, any model of such JV is...

Empirical evidence of transfer pricing suggests that US sales to affiliates based in low taxed countries are underpriced. The argument has been made that, by symmetry, US sales to affiliates in high tax countries are overpriced. We show that this symmetry assumption is far from certain once...

Pricing policy of intra-group transactions can have significant effects on competitive advantage and profitability in terms of fiscal costs of companies with international activity. The trend in transfer pricing developments in many countries reveals a growing interest of the national tax...

Multinational corporations can shift income into low-tax countries through transfer pricing and debt financing. While most developed countries use thin capitalization rules to limit the extent to which a subsidiary can be financed with internal debt, a number of developing countries do not. In...

This paper explores the effects of tax provisions aimed at restricting multinationals’ tax planning on foreign direct investment (FDI). Using a unique dataset which allows us to observe the worldwide activities of a large panel of multinational firms, we test how limitations of interest tax...