Taxation and Multinational Activity; New Evidence, New Interpretations

In the midst of rapid integration and globalization, multinational firms still face tax systems that differ among countries, and these differences have the potential to affect major investment and financing decisions. This research covers a wide range of topics, including the impact of indirect taxes as well as of corporate income taxes, the sensitivity of financing decisions to tax rates, the effects of taxes on repatriation policies, the demand for, and impact of, tax havens, and the use of indirect ownership as a means of avoiding taxes. The behavior of US multinational firms as revealed by the evidence collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis surveys consistently demonstrates that taxes play a critical role in shaping the volume and location of foreign investment, the financing of foreign investment, and the organizational structures of multinationals firms.