Many US states have set ambitious renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require utilities to switch from fossil fuels toward renewables. RPS increases the renewables capacity, bond issuance, maturity, and yield spreads of investor-owned utilities compared to municipal producers that are...

We study the effect of stricter enforcement of the dividend-withholding tax (DWT). We focus on a 2016 Danish reform and compare Denmark to its Nordic neighbors. Before the reform, all countries have strong spikes in stocks on loan centered around the ex-dividend day, consistent with the most...

This article examines an array of new tax questions that have arisen, or are about to arise, as a result of changes in market practice and the legal rules governing over-the-counter derivative financial instruments (“swaps”). The changes to the regulatory laws governing swaps are still a...

The Panama Papers refers to a massive leak of information encompassing more than 11 million documents involving more than 200,000 offshore entities. The leak originated in Panama. Some of the documents involve transactions as far back as the 1970s. Numerous wealthy individuals, including top...

This paper investigates the extent to which the expiration of a temporary tax law makes corporate earnings harder to predict and understand. Examining evidence from eight separate expirations of the R&D tax credit, I find that analysts’ forecast errors and abnormal volume increase surrounding...

The use of tax policy to address environmental destruction is entering a new phase in Canadian history with the adoption of a Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which features a federal carbon tax regime. This Framework is designed as a backstop to existing sub-national...

Credit contracting between a lender with monopoly market power and a small start-up entrepreneur may lead to the rejection of projects whose expected benefits are higher than their total costs. This inefficiency may be eliminated by government support in the form of credit guarantees or interest...

There is little empirical evidence of company tax driving firm value in the finance literature though a change to Australian dividend imputation tax law in 1997 suggests the existence of dividend taxation induced tax clienteles. Recent changes to the regulation of the Australian dividend...

I present a rationale for a government to discriminate between debt and equity financing when taxing corporate income. For risk-averse entrepreneurs, equity generates more surplus than debt, because it provides financing and insurance. A government seeking to extract surplus from entrepreneurs...

This paper examines the effect of rate regulation on the management of the property-liability insurer loss reserve. The political cost hypothesis predicts that managers make accounting choices to reduce wealth transfers resulting from the regulatory process. Managers may under-state reserves to...