[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/btx/wpaper/0817.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Transfer-pricing and Measured Productivity of Multinational Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgia Maffini

    (Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)

  • Socrates Mokkas

    (Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)

Abstract
This paper examines the diferences in total factor productivity (TFP) between multinationals and domestic firms before and after tax rate changes to investigate whether the host country corporate tax rate has a significant influence on the measured TFP advantage of multinational companies. Using a difference-in-differences approach on a sample of approximately 16,000 European firms (1998-2004), we find that a 10 percentage points cut in the statutory corporate tax rate would increase multinationals' measured TFP by about 10% relative to domestic firms, consistent with profit-shifting by multinationals. At the sample mean, this would imply a 44% increase in the TFP advantage of multinationals.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgia Maffini & Socrates Mokkas, 2008. "Transfer-pricing and Measured Productivity of Multinational Firms," Working Papers 0817, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    • Handle: RePEc:btx:wpaper:0817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Business_Taxation/Docs/Publications/Working_Papers/Series_08/WP0920.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tor Jakob Klette, 1999. "Market Power, Scale Economies and Productivity: Estimates from a Panel of Establishment Data," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 451-476, December.
    2. Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2008. "The Sensitivity of Productivity Estimates," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 311-328.
    3. Chiara Criscuolo & Ralf Martin, 2009. "Multinationals and U.S. Productivity Leadership: Evidence from Great Britain," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 263-281, May.
    4. Zvi Griliches & Jacques Mairesse, 1995. "Production Functions: The Search for Identification," NBER Working Papers 5067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Swenson, Deborah L., 2001. "Tax Reforms and Evidence of Transfer Pricing," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(1), pages 7-26, March.
    6. Brian J. Aitken & Ann E. Harrison, 2022. "Do Domestic Firms Benefit from Direct Foreign Investment? Evidence from Venezuela," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 6, pages 139-152, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg, 2016. "Multinationals’ Productivity Advantage: Scale Or Technology?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 1, pages 3-15, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Jens M. Arnold & Katrin Hussinger, 2010. "Exports versus FDI in German Manufacturing: Firm Performance and Participation in International Markets," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 595-606, September.
    9. Thierry Mayer & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2008. "The Happy Few: The Internationalisation of European Firms," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 43(3), pages 135-148, May.
    10. repec:bla:jindec:v:47:y:1999:i:4:p:451-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Mark E. Doms & J . Bradford Jensen, 1998. "Comparing Wages, Skills, and Productivity between Domestically and Foreign-Owned Manufacturing Establishments in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Geography and Ownership as Bases for Economic Accounting, pages 235-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mark Doms & Eric J. Bartelsman, 2000. "Understanding Productivity: Lessons from Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 569-594, September.
    13. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2006. "Transfer Pricing by U.S.-Based Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 12493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kyoji Fukao & Keiko Ito & Hyeog Ug Kwon & Miho Takizawa, 2008. "Cross-Border Acquisitions and Target Firms' Performance: Evidence from Japanese Firm-Level Data," NBER Chapters, in: International Financial Issues in the Pacific Rim: Global Imbalances, Financial Liberalization, and Exchange Rate Policy, pages 347-389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Davide Castellani & Antonello Zanfei, 2007. "Internationalisation, Innovation and Productivity: How Do Firms Differ in Italy?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 156-176, January.
    16. Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "International profit shifting within multinationals: A multi-country perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1164-1182, June.
    17. Aitken, Brian & Harrison, Ann & DEC, 1994. "Do domestic firms benefit from foreign direct investment? Evidence from panel data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1248, The World Bank.
    18. Robert E. Baldwin & Robert E. Lipsey & J. David Richardson, 1998. "Geography and Ownership as Bases for Economic Accounting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bald98-1.
    19. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R & Diewert, W Erwin, 1982. "Multilateral Comparisons of Output, Input, and Productivity Using Superlative Index Numbers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(365), pages 73-86, March.
    20. Robert E. Lipsey, 2002. "Home and Host Country Effects of FDI," NBER Working Papers 9293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Michael P Devereux, 2007. "The Impact of Taxation on the Location of Capital, Firms and Profit: a Survey of Empirical Evidence," Working Papers 0702, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    22. Swenson, Deborah L., 2001. "Tax Reforms and Evidence of Transfer Pricing," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 54(n. 1), pages 7-26, March.
    23. Overesch, Michael, 2006. "Transfer pricing of intrafirm sales as a profit shifting channel: evidence from German firm data," ZEW Discussion Papers 06-084, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giorgia Maffini & Socrates Mokkas, 2009. "Profit Shifting and Measured Productivity of Multinational Firms," Working Papers 0920, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    2. Davide Castellani & Giorgia Giovannetti, 2010. "Productivity and the international firm: dissecting heterogeneity," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 25-42.
    3. Criscuolo, Chiara & Haskel, Jonathan E. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2010. "Global engagement and the innovation activities of firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 191-202, March.
    4. Fiedler, Salomon & Görg, Holger & Hornok, Cecília & Jannsen, Nils & Kooths, Stefan & Marchal, Léa & Potjagailo, Galina, 2018. "Direktinvestitionen im Ausland - Effekte auf die deutsche Leistungsbilanz und Spillovers in den Empfängerländern," Kieler Beiträge zur Wirtschaftspolitik 16, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Jonathan E. Haskel & Sonia C. Pereira & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2007. "Does Inward Foreign Direct Investment Boost the Productivity of Domestic Firms?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 482-496, August.
    6. Wolfgang Keller & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2009. "Multinational Enterprises, International Trade, and Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 821-831, November.
    7. V. Vicard, 2015. "Profit shifting through transfer pricing: evidence from French firm level trade data," Working papers 555, Banque de France.
    8. Carol Corrado & Paul Lengermann & Larry Slifman, 2009. "The Contribution of Multinational Corporations to US Productivity Growth, 1977–2000," NBER Chapters, in: International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, pages 331-360, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Walheer, Barnabé & He, Ming, 2020. "Technical efficiency and technology gap of the manufacturing industry in China: Does firm ownership matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    10. Ronald B. Davies & Julien Martin & Mathieu Parenti & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 120-134, March.
    11. Holzmann, Carolin Maria, 2016. "Transfer pricing as tax avoidance under different legislative schemes," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145929, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Castellani, Davide & Montresor, Sandro & Schubert, Torben & Vezzani, Antonio, 2017. "Multinationality, R&D and productivity: Evidence from the top R&D investors worldwide," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 405-416.
    13. Börje Johansson & Hans Lööf, 2011. "FDI Inflows to Sweden: Consequences for Innovation and Renewal," Chapters, in: Sameeksha Desai & Peter Nijkamp & Roger R. Stough (ed.), New Directions in Regional Economic Development, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Mariachiara Barzotto & Giancarlo Corò & Ilaria Mariotti & Marco Mutinelli, 2016. "The impact of Inward FDI on host country labour markets. A counterfactual analysis on Italian manufacturing companies," Working Papers 1612, c.MET-05 - Centro Interuniversitario di Economia Applicata alle Politiche per L'industria, lo Sviluppo locale e l'Internazionalizzazione.
    15. Daniel Anarfi & Danuše Nerudová, 2018. "Profit Shifting and the Tax Response of Multinational Banks in Eastern Europe," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 729-736.
    16. Arnt Ove Hopland & Petro Lisowsky & Mohammed Mardan & Dirk Schindler, 2014. "Income Shifting under Losses," CESifo Working Paper Series 5130, CESifo.
    17. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg, 2016. "Evaluating the foreign ownership wage premium using a difference-in-differences matching approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 2, pages 17-32, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Johannes Becker & Ronald B Davies, 2014. "A negotiation-based model of tax-induced transfer pricing," Working Papers 1409, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    19. Philippe Aghion & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt & Susanne Prantl, 2009. "The Effects of Entry on Incumbent Innovation and Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 20-32, February.
    20. Fons-Rosen, Christian & Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Sørensen, Bent E. & Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina & Volosovych, Vadym, 2021. "Quantifying productivity gains from foreign investment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    multinational firms; total factor productivity; corporate taxation; profit shifting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:btx:wpaper:0817. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dongxian Guo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sbsoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.