This paper investigates the tax responsiveness of multinational firms’ investment decisions in foreign countries, distinguishing firms that are able to avoid taxes (avoiders) from those that are not (non-avoiders). From a theoretical point of view, the tax responsiveness of firms crucially...

This paper is the first to use information from individual country-by-country (CbC) re-ports to assess the extent of profit shifting by multinational enterprises. Unlike other data often used to evaluate the extent of profit shifting and tax avoidance, CbC reports pro-vide a complete coverage of...

Recent empirical research documents a tendency of affiliates of multinational enterprises to bunch around zero reported profit. Setting up a model that allows for profitable and loss-making affiliates of multinationals, we show that profit shifting to a low-tax country as well as a loss-related,...

We investigate competition for FDI within a region when a foreign multinational firm can profitably exploit differences in statutory corporate tax rates by shifting taxable profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. In such framework we show that targeted tax competition may lead to higher welfare for...

This paper investigates multinational enterprises' (MNEs) response to a unique window of opportunity for temporarily unrestricted profit shifting. The window unexpectedly opened because of a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2006 that suspended the application of controlled foreign...

We provide indirect empirical evidence of profit shifting behavior by multinational enterprises. This issue is analyzed in an econometric panel study for the years 1995 to 2005 and additionally in a cross-section for 2004 using a large micro database of European subsidiaries of multinationals...

The scientific literature provides evidence for an impact of company taxes on investments. Practitioners, however, have a skeptical view on the meaning of this effect. This paper builds the bridge between research and the interested practice by providing detailed descriptives and clearly showing...

We analyze the impact of tax loss treatment on the size and structure of multinational investments. Basically, two effects of tax loss treatment can be expected. First, firms make their investment decisions in the face of potential future losses. Then, the various types of conceivable loss...

Intangible assets are one major source of profit shifting opportunities due to a highly intransparent transfer pricing process. Our paper argues that multinational enterprises (MNEs) optimize their profit shifting strategy by locating shifting-relevant intangible property at affiliates with a...

Bargaining power may explain the tax differences between multinational and national enterprises beyond MNEs' profit shifting. Larger firms (mostly MNEs) are more valuable for tax authorities for various reasons. In threatening relocation, larger firms extract greater deductions, resulting in a...