The relationship between economic growth and human development is complex, and even the relatively simple links between economic growth and people not having sufficient money for basic essentials such as food and medicines (known as income poverty) are not well understood. Increasingly urgent...

Fully public country-by-country reporting would enable a dramatic shift in the accountability of both multinationals and tax jurisdictions. Estimates of the losses due to tax avoidance imply that lower-income countries would benefit disproportionately, as this transparency would offer powerful...

This paper reviews the prospects for a global public database on the tax contributions and economic activities of multinational companies. It is divided into four main sections. Firstly, we present a set of user stories, questions, requirements, and scenarios of usage for a database. Secondly,...

Both academic research and public policy debate around tax havens and offshore finance typically suffer from a lack of definitional consistency. Unsurprisingly then, there is little agreement about which jurisdictions ought to be considered as tax havens — or which policy measures would result...

Under the current system of separate accounting, tax-motivated international profit shifting results in misalignment of profits and real economic activity. While the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative aims to measure and...

A major international effort – the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative – aims to reduce the extent of misalignment between the profits of multinational groups, and the location of their real economic activity. Recent research using balance sheet data has shown major...

This paper evaluates the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) recently proposed by the European Commission. We find that if the CCCTB is introduced as it is currently proposed (including loss consolidation), then it is likely to impose large tax revenue costs of about one fifth of the...

An initiative is needed to break the logjam in the international negotiations to reform taxation of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The primary agreed goal of the project on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) was to better align MNEs’ taxable profits with the location of real economic...

An initiative is needed to break the logjam in the international negotiations to reform taxation of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The primary agreed goal of the project on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) was to better align MNEs’ taxable profits with the location of real economic...

A major obstacle to cross-country research on the role of revenue and taxation in development has been the weakness of available data. This paper presents a new Government Revenue Dataset (GRD), developed through the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). The dataset meticulously...