We use data from the U.S. Treasury corporate tax files for 1984 and 1992 to address two related questions concerning the investment decisions of U.S. multinational corporations. First, how sensitive are investment location decisions to tax rate differences across countries? And second, have...

We investigate the determinants of firms' implicit insurance to employees, using a difference-indifference approach: we rely on differences between family and non-family firms to identify the supply of insurance, and exploit variation in unemployment insurance across and within countries to...

Prior research has documented a substantial “lockout” effect resulting from the current U.S. worldwide tax and financial reporting systems. We hypothesize that foreign firms are tax- favored acquirers because they can avoid the U.S. tax on repatriations. Consistent with this tax advantage,...

We estimate a dynamic model, featuring agency conflicts and a stochastic tax reform arrival, to evaluate how the change from a worldwide to territorial tax system, enacted under the TCJA, affects foreign investment. Although a worldwide system imposes a higher tax liability on foreign income, we...

The effects of bilateral tax treaties on FDI activity have been unexplored, despite significant ongoing activities by countries to negotiate and ratify these treaties. This paper estimates the impact of bilateral tax treaties using both U.S. inbound and outbound FDI over the period 1966-1992....

This paper examines the effects of state corporate income taxes on the location of foreign direct investment, taking into account the state governments' behavior when setting taxes. Ignoring the tax setting behavior of states may bias the estimate of the tax effects on foreign direct investment....

This paper investigates whether the U.S. repatriation tax for U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) affects foreign investment. Prior research shows that repatriation tax costs are positively associated with cash overseas, but the use of such cash is not well understood. Our results show that...

This study examines the effect of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) on capital investment, labor investment, and the productivity of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs). Proponents of the TCJA argue it decreased foreign investment by leveling the playing field...

This paper examines the consequences of foreign tax holiday participation for U.S. economic activities. Chow, Hoopes, and Maydew (2020) present the first evidence of U.S. multinational companies’ (MNCs) participation in foreign tax holidays and find significant involvement in recent decades....