The elasticity of business capital to changes in its user cost is central to the economic analysis of fiscal policies. As a major component, the user cost of capital includes a firm's marginal tax rate. Due to the asymmetric treatment of tax losses and profits, the marginal tax rate can depart...

We contribute to the empirical literature on the relationship between corporate taxes and investment. We exploit the introduction of the so-called ACE corporate tax reform in Belgium that came into effect in January 2006 to evaluate this relationship in a quasiexperimental setting based on...

For decades, most industrialised countries have implemented some forms of fiscal and financial incentives to stimulate fixed capital formation. Tax cuts and capital grants are of great use in regional policy. Since these instruments mobilise huge amounts of public resources the issue of their...

I analyze the e ffects of profi t taxation on the fi nancing decision of corporate acquisitions. The deductibility of interest expenses from the corporate tax base creates an incentive for acquiring companies to fi nance a takeover with debt. Regarding the particular decision how to finance the...

A well-known strategy of tax avoidance by multinationals is to locate debt in subsidiaries in countries with a high tax rate. In case of M&As it is particularly advantageous to locate debt at the level of holdings. By using firm-level data provided by the German Central Bank, I show empirically...

Using a rich panel data base for firms in Asian countries, we assess the effect of public sector corruption on corporate assets investment and tax payments. Our findings suggest that public sector corruption does not deter investment activities of national firms while asset investment of...

This paper sets up an imperfect-competition model of a small open economy, and undertakes a welfare comparison of the Corporate Business Income Tax (CBIT) and the Allowance for Corporate Equity tax (ACE). A main result is that a small open economy should levy a positive source tax on capital in...

We analyze the implications of OECD methods to regulate transfer pricing and the role of a royalty tax for abusive transfer pricing. We show: (i) Under traditional methods, mispricing of royalty payments does not affect investment, but the Transactional Profit Split Method triggers higher...

We revisit the effects of double tax treaties on foreign direct investment. Previous empirical studies provide somewhat counterintuitive results suggesting insignificant or even negative effects of tax treaties. Using a rich firm-level dataset provided by the German Central Bank we analyze the...