[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21534.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

State Taxation and the Reallocation of Business Activity: Evidence from Establishment-Level Data

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Giroud
  • Joshua Rauh
Abstract
In a sample of over 27 million establishments of U.S. firms with activities in more than one state, we estimate the impact of state business taxation on business activity. Only firms organized as subchapter C corporations are subject to the corporate tax code, whereas the income of partnerships, sole-proprietorships, and S corporations is passed through annually to the firm's owners and taxed at individual rates. For C corporations, both employment at existing establishments (intensive margin) and the number of establishments in the state (extensive margin) have corporate tax elasticities of -0.4. Pass-through entities, which serve as a control group for the corporate tax reforms, respond only to the personal tax code, with tax elasticities of -0.2 to -0.3. Around half of the effects are driven by reallocation of productive resources to other states where the treated firms have establishments. Capital shows similar patterns but is 36% less elastic than labor. A narrative approach confirms that the results are robust and strongest in the sample of tax changes that were implemented due to inherited budget deficits, long-run goals, or cross-state variation caused by Federal tax reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Giroud & Joshua Rauh, 2015. "State Taxation and the Reallocation of Business Activity: Evidence from Establishment-Level Data," NBER Working Papers 21534, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21534
    Note: CF PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21534.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bartik, Timothy J, 1985. "Business Location Decisions in the United States: Estimates of the Effects of Unionization, Taxes, and Other Characteristics of States," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(1), pages 14-22, January.
    2. Paulo Guimarães & Octávio Figueirdo & Douglas Woodward, 2003. "A Tractable Approach to the Firm Location Decision Problem," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 201-204, February.
    3. Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Owen Zidar, 2016. "Who Benefits from State Corporate Tax Cuts? A Local Labor Markets Approach with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2582-2624, September.
    4. Gordon, Roger H. & MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K., 1994. "Tax distortions to the choice of organizational form," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 279-306, October.
    5. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
    6. Reed, W. Robert, 2008. "The Robust Relationship Between Taxes and U.S. State Income Growth," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 61(1), pages 57-80, March.
    7. Paulo Guimarães & Octávio Figueiredo & Douglas Woodward, 2004. "Industrial Location Modeling: Extending the Random Utility Framework," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 1-20, February.
    8. Papke, Leslie E., 1991. "Interstate business tax differentials and new firm location : Evidence from panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 47-68, June.
    9. Randall G. Holcombe & Donald J. Lacombe, 2004. "The Effect of State Income Taxation on Per Capita Income Growth," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(3), pages 292-312, May.
    10. Marius Brülhart & Mario Jametti & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2012. "Do agglomeration economies reduce the sensitivity of firm location to tax differentials?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(563), pages 1069-1093, September.
    11. Gupta, Sanjay & Mills, Lillian F., 2002. "Corporate multistate tax planning: benefits of multiple jurisdictions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 117-139, February.
    12. Mackie-Mason, Jeffrey K & Gordon, Roger H, 1997. "How Much Do Taxes Discourage Incorporation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 477-505, June.
    13. Alexander Ljungqvist & Michael Smolyansky, 2014. "To Cut or Not to Cut? On the Impact of Corporate Taxes on Employment and Income," NBER Working Papers 20753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. William G. Gale & Aaron Krupkin & Kim Rueben, 2015. "The Relationship Between Taxes and Growth at the State Level: New Evidence," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 68(4), pages 919-942, December.
    15. Hausman, Jerry & Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi, 1984. "Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 909-938, July.
    16. Mofidi, Alaeddin & Stone, Joe A, 1990. "Do State and Local Taxes Affect Economic Growth?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 686-691, November.
    17. Grieson, Ronald E., 1980. "Theoretical analysis and empirical measurements of the effects of the Philadelphia income tax," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 123-137, July.
    18. Christopher A. Hennessy & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2015. "Beyond Random Assignment: Credible Inference of Causal Effects in Dynamic Economies," NBER Working Papers 20978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Coughlin, Cletus C & Terza, Joseph V & Arromdee, Vachira, 1991. "State Characteristics and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment within the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(4), pages 675-683, November.
    20. William F. Fox, 1981. "Fiscal Differentials and Industrial Location: Some Empirical Evidence," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 18(1), pages 105-111, February.
    21. Goolsbee, Austan, 2004. "The impact of the corporate income tax: evidence from state organizational form data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2283-2299, September.
    22. Strebulaev, Ilya & Hennessy, Christopher, 2015. "Natural Experiment Policy Evaluation: A Critique," CEPR Discussion Papers 10455, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    23. Goolsbee, Austan, 1998. "Taxes, organizational form, and the deadweight loss of the corporate income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 143-152, July.
    24. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1992. "Gross Job Creation, Gross Job Destruction, and Employment Reallocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 819-863.
    25. Hines, James R, Jr, 1996. "Altered States: Taxes and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1076-1094, December.
    26. Helen F. Ladd, 1993. "State responses to the TRA86 revenue windfalls: A new test of the flypaper effect," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 82-103.
    27. Helms, L Jay, 1985. "The Effect of State and Local Taxes on Economic Growth: A Time Series-Cross Section Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(4), pages 574-582, November.
    28. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1990. "Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on Corporate Financial Policy and Organizational Form," NBER Working Papers 3222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Charles E. McLure Jr., 1981. "The Elusive Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax: The State Case," Public Finance Review, , vol. 9(4), pages 395-413, October.
    30. Carlton, Dennis W, 1983. "The Location and Employment Choices of New Firms: An Econometric Model with Discrete and Continuous Endogenous Variables," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 440-449, August.
    31. Newman, Robert J, 1983. "Industry Migration and Growth in the South," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(1), pages 76-86, February.
    32. Thomas J. Holmes, 1998. "The Effect of State Policies on the Location of Manufacturing: Evidence from State Borders," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 667-705, August.
    33. Gravelle, Jane G & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1993. "Corporate Tax Incidence and Inefficiency When Corporate and Noncorporate Goods Are Close Substitutes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 501-516, October.
    34. Roland Rathelot & Patrick Sillard, 2008. "The Importance of Local Corporate Taxes in Business Location Decisions: Evidence From French Micro Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(527), pages 499-514, March.
    35. Gravelle, Jane G & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1989. "The Incidence and Efficiency Costs of Corporate Taxation When Corporate and Noncorporate Firms Produce the Same Good," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 749-780, August.
    36. Ron S Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2002. "The Longitudinal Business Database," Working Papers 02-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    37. Bania, Neil & Gray, Jo Anna & Stone, Joe A., 2007. "Growth, Taxes, and Government Expenditures: Growth Hills for U.S. States," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(2), pages 193-204, June.
    38. Charles E. McLure, Jr., 1981. "The Elusive Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax: The State Case," NBER Working Papers 0616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    40. Todd M. Gabe & Kathleen P. Bell, 2004. "Tradeoffs between Local Taxes and Government Spending as Determinants of Business Location," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 21-41, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pablo D Fajgelbaum & Eduardo Morales & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Owen Zidar, 2019. "State Taxes and Spatial Misallocation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 333-376.
    2. Suárez Serrato, Juan Carlos & Zidar, Owen, 2018. "The structure of state corporate taxation and its impact on state tax revenues and economic activity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 158-176.
    3. Jordi Jofre-Monseny & Simon Loretz & Valeria Merlo & Daniel J. Wilson, 2016. "Taxation, multinationals and foreign direct investment / Tributación, multinacionales e inversión extranjera directa / Tributació, multinacionals i inversió estrangera directa," IEB Reports ieb_report_2_2016, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. Pezone, Vincenzo, 2017. "Unemployment Risk and Payout Policies," MPRA Paper 83918, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel T. Burstein & Manolis Chatzikonstantinou, 2019. "Transitional Dynamics in Aggregate Models of Innovative Investment," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 273-301, August.
    6. Mukherjee, Abhiroop & Singh, Manpreet & Žaldokas, Alminas, 2017. "Do corporate taxes hinder innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 195-221.
    7. Enami, Ali & Reynolds, C. Lockwood & Rohlin, Shawn M., 2023. "The effect of property taxes on businesses: Evidence from a dynamic regression discontinuity approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    8. Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2018. "Corporate taxes and vertical tax externalities: Evidence from narrative federal tax shocks," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 84-97.
    9. E. Mark Curtis & Ryan A. Decker, 2018. "Entrepreneurship and State Taxation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-003, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Antonio Estache & Beni Kouevi Gath, 2019. "Corporate Income Taxes and (Un-)Employment in the OECD," Working Papers ECARES 2019-11, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. DeBacker, Jason & Heim, Bradley T. & Ramnath, Shanthi P. & Ross, Justin M., 2019. "The impact of state taxes on pass-through businesses: Evidence from the 2012 Kansas income tax reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 53-75.

    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. Xavier Giroud & Joshua Rauh, 2017. "State Taxation and the Reallocation of Business Activity: Evidence from Establishment-Level Data," Working Papers 17-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Xavier Giroud & Joshua D. Rauh, 2016. "State Taxation and the Reallocation of Business Activity: Evidence from Establishment-Level Data," Economics Working Papers 16103, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    3. Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato & Owen Zidar, 2016. "Who Benefits from State Corporate Tax Cuts? A Local Labor Markets Approach with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2582-2624, September.
    4. Masud Alam, 2021. "Heterogeneous Responses to the U.S. Narrative Tax Changes: Evidence from the U.S. States," Papers 2107.13678, arXiv.org.
    5. Rork, Jonathan C., 2005. "Getting What You Pay For: The Case of Southern Economic Development," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-17.
    6. Michael Wasylenko, 1997. "Taxation and economic development: the state of the economic literature," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Mar, pages 37-52.
    7. Rohlin, Shawn & Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Amanda, 2014. "Tax avoidance and business location in a state border model," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 34-49.
    8. Josep‐Maria Arauzo‐Carod & Daniel Liviano‐Solis & Miguel Manjón‐Antolín, 2010. "Empirical Studies In Industrial Location: An Assessment Of Their Methods And Results," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 685-711, August.
    9. Niklas Elert, 2014. "What determines entry? Evidence from Sweden," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(1), pages 55-92, August.
    10. Beem, Richard & Bruce, Donald, 2021. "Failure to launch: Measuring the impact of sales tax nexus standards on business activity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    11. Jerome Segura III, 2017. "The effect of state and local taxes on economic growth: A spatial dynamic panel approach," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(3), pages 627-645, August.
    12. Li Liu, 2014. "Income Taxation and Business Incorporation: Evidence From the Early Twentieth Century," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(2), pages 387-418, June.
    13. Megha Mukim & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2012. "The Location Choices of Foreign Investors: A District-level Analysis in India," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7), pages 886-918, July.
    14. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Raei, Sepideh, 2023. "Output distortions and the choice of legal form of organization," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Schmidheiny, Kurt & Brülhart, Marius, 2011. "On the equivalence of location choice models: Conditional logit, nested logit and Poisson," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 214-222, March.
    16. Richard Funderburg & Timothy J. Bartik & Alan H. Peters & Peter S. Fisher, 2013. "The Impact Of Marginal Business Taxes On State Manufacturing," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 557-582, October.
    17. Jae Teuk Chin, 2020. "Location Choice of New Business Establishments: Understanding the Local Context and Neighborhood Conditions in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, January.
    18. Hans Bacher & Marius Brülhart, 2013. "Progressive taxes and firm births," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(1), pages 129-168, February.
    19. Enami, Ali & Reynolds, C. Lockwood & Rohlin, Shawn M., 2023. "The effect of property taxes on businesses: Evidence from a dynamic regression discontinuity approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    20. Marius Brülhart & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2015. "Estimating The Rivalness Of State-Level Inward Fdi," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 139-148, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects

    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:nbr:nberwo:21534. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.