Erokhin Dmitry
Vienna University of Economics and Business Vienna Austria.
World Econ. 2023 Sep;46(9):2808-2834. doi: 10.1111/twec.13465. Epub 2023 Jul 10.
This paper investigates tax-related determinants of indirect foreign direct investment (FDI). In particular, it studies the effects of bilateral effective average tax rates, the strength of anti-tax avoidance rules in host countries and tax haven status of home countries on the volume of indirect FDI host countries receive. The paper uses the fourth edition of the OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment (BMD4) database, which distinguishes between ultimate and immediate FDI. Methodologically, the paper relies on the standard gravity equation for FDI and applies the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation model. The paper shows that ultimate FDI is not influenced by tax-related factors but only real economic determinants, whereas tax rates affect immediate FDI. This finding suggests that previous research may have overestimated the tax elasticity of FDI, and taxes do not have an impact on location decisions of FDI, but rather the route of investing-direct or indirect. The paper defines indirect FDI as the difference between ultimate and immediate FDI and finds that high bilateral effective average tax rates encourage indirect FDI. The finding is robust under different specifications.
本文研究间接外国直接投资（FDI）与税收相关的决定因素。具体而言，它考察双边有效平均税率、东道国反避税规则的力度以及母国的避税地地位对东道国所接收的间接外国直接投资规模的影响。本文使用经合组织《外国直接投资基准定义》（BMD4）第四版数据库，该数据库区分了最终外国直接投资和直接外国直接投资。在方法上，本文依赖外国直接投资的标准引力方程，并应用泊松伪最大似然估计模型。本文表明，最终外国直接投资不受税收相关因素影响，仅受实际经济决定因素影响，而税率影响直接外国直接投资。这一发现表明，先前的研究可能高估了外国直接投资的税收弹性，税收对外国直接投资的区位决策没有影响，而是对投资途径——直接或间接——有影响。本文将间接外国直接投资定义为最终外国直接投资与直接外国直接投资之间的差额，并发现双边有效平均税率较高会鼓励间接外国直接投资。这一发现在不同设定下都很稳健。
