IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/acctfi/v58y2019i5p1413-1443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional favoritism and tax avoidance: evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Yunsen Chen
  • Jianqiao Huang
  • Hang Liu
  • Weimin Wang

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of officials’ regional favoritism on corporate tax avoidance activity in China. We find that firms located in regions that were formerly administered by the current provincial governors have a higher level of tax avoidance than other firms in the province. Further evidence indicates that regional favoritism affects tax avoidance through two channels: regional politicians’ personal connections with the governor and firms’ political access to the governor. Overall, the findings support China's current official selection and promotion guidelines that restrict hometown favoritism. Our results further imply that favoritism can also extend to officials’ former administrative regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Yunsen Chen & Jianqiao Huang & Hang Liu & Weimin Wang, 2019. "Regional favoritism and tax avoidance: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(5), pages 1413-1443, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:58:y:2019:i:5:p:1413-1443
    DOI: 10.1111/acfi.12447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.12447
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/acfi.12447?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wei Cen & Naqiong Tong & Yushi Sun, 2017. "Tax avoidance and cost of debt: evidence from a natural experiment in China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1517-1556, December.
    2. Jianlei Han & Jing He & Zheyao Pan & Jing Shi, 2018. "Twenty Years of Accounting and Finance Research on the Chinese Capital Market," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(4), pages 576-599, December.
    3. Raymond Fisman & Jing Shi & Yongxiang Wang & Rong Xu, 2018. "Social Ties and Favoritism in Chinese Science," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(3), pages 1134-1171.
    4. Xu, Nianhang & Chen, Qinyuan & Xu, Yan & Chan, Kam C., 2016. "Political uncertainty and cash holdings: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 276-295.
    5. Pantzalis, Christos & Park, Jung Chul, 2014. "Too close for comfort? Geographic propinquity to political power and stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 57-78.
    6. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    7. Hongfeng Peng & Xiao Zhang & Xiaoquan Zhu, 2017. "Political connections of the board of directors and credit financing: evidence from Chinese private enterprises," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1481-1516, December.
    8. Dong, Yan & Liu, Zhentao & Shen, Zhe & Sun, Qian, 2016. "Does State Ownership Really Matter in Determining Access to Bank Loans? Evidence from China's Partial Privatization," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 73-85.
    9. Li, Hongbin & Zhou, Li-An, 2005. "Political turnover and economic performance: the incentive role of personnel control in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1743-1762, September.
    10. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    11. Dahlberg, Matz & Johansson, Eva, 2002. "On the Vote-Purchasing Behavior of Incumbent Governments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 27-40, March.
    12. Chansog (Francis) Kim & Liandong Zhang, 2016. "Corporate Political Connections and Tax Aggressiveness," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 78-114, March.
    13. Berry, Christopher R. & Burden, Barry C. & Howell, William G., 2010. "The President and the Distribution of Federal Spending," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(4), pages 783-799, November.
    14. Kenny Z. Lin & Lillian F. Mills & Fang Zhang & Yongbo Li, 2018. "Do Political Connections Weaken Tax Enforcement Effectiveness?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 1941-1972, December.
    15. K. Hung Chan & Phyllis L. L. Mo & Amy Y. Zhou & Steven Cahan, 2013. "Government ownership, corporate governance and tax aggressiveness: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(4), pages 1029-1051, December.
    16. Kim, Chansog (Francis) & Pantzalis, Christos & Chul Park, Jung, 2012. "Political geography and stock returns: The value and risk implications of proximity to political power," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 196-228.
    17. Faccio, Mara & Parsley, David C., 2009. "Sudden Deaths: Taking Stock of Geographic Ties," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 683-718, June.
    18. Oliver Zhen Li & Hang Liu & Chenkai Ni, 2017. "Controlling Shareholders’ Incentive and Corporate Tax Avoidance: A Natural Experiment in China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5-6), pages 697-727, May.
    19. Roland Hodler & Paul A. Raschky, 2014. "Regional Favoritism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 995-1033.
    20. Stephen Gray & Iman Harymawan & John Nowland, 2016. "Political and government connections on corporate boards in Australia: Good for business?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(1), pages 3-26, February.
    21. Adhikari, Ajay & Derashid, Chek & Zhang, Hao, 2006. "Public policy, political connections, and effective tax rates: Longitudinal evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 574-595.
    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. Feng Huang & Jie Gao, 2022. "Customer and Tax Avoidance: How Does Customer Geographic Proximity Affect a Supplier’s Tax Avoidance?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-30, November.
    2. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Gomtsyan, David, 2021. "Favoritism and firms: Micro evidence and macro implications," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-031, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Francis OSEI-TUTU & Laurent WEILL, 2023. "Regional Favoritism and Access to Credit," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2023-04, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    4. Faqin Lin & Rui Wang & Kuo Feng, 2024. "Regional favouritism in Chinese university admissions," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 209-236, January.
    5. Zhuo Chen & Mingzhi Hu & Zhiyi Qiu, 2022. "Promotion Pressures of Local Leaders and Real Estate Investments: China and Leader Heterogeneity," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-14, August.
    6. Liu, Xiaoxia & Li, Minghui & Tong, Jamie Yixing & Zhang, Feida, 2022. "CFO gender and tax aggressiveness: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    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. Chen, Yunsen & Huang, Jianqiao & Xiao, Sheng & Zhao, Ziye, 2020. "The “home bias” of corporate subsidiary locations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Yu Shen & Di Gao & Di Bu & Lina Yan & Ping Chen, 2019. "CEO hometown ties and tax avoidance‐evidence from China's listed firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(5), pages 1549-1580, March.
    3. Wenzhou Qu & Shaoqing Kang & Lihong Wang, 2020. "Saving or tunnelling: value effects of tax avoidance in Chinese listed local government‐controlled firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(5), pages 4421-4465, December.
    4. Liang, Quanxi & Li, Qiumei & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2021. "Industry and geographic peer effects on corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2020. "Related Party Transactions, State Ownership, the Cost of Corporate Debt, and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints y5qj3, Center for Open Science.
    6. Kovermann, Jost & Velte, Patrick, 2019. "The impact of corporate governance on corporate tax avoidance—A literature review," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Christos Pantzalis & Jung Chul Park, 2020. "Stock Market Consequences Of Political Vibrancy," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 491-542, August.
    8. Kong, Gaowen & Ji, Mianmian & Guo, Yuemei, 2021. "Political promotion events and energy conservation decisions: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    9. Tao Chen & Youchao Tan & Jinghua Wang & Cheng (Colin) Zeng, 2022. "The Unintended Consequence of Land Finance: Evidence from Corporate Tax Avoidance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8319-8342, November.
    10. Feng Huang & Jie Gao, 2022. "Customer and Tax Avoidance: How Does Customer Geographic Proximity Affect a Supplier’s Tax Avoidance?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-30, November.
    11. Ma, Guangrong & Qi, Qingyuan & Liu, Mengxin, 2023. "A lack of nostalgia: Hometown favoritism and allocation of intergovernmental transfer in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Wang, Litan & You, Kefei, 2022. "The impact of political connections on corporate tax burden: Evidence from the Chinese market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    13. Li, Xiaoxia & Cai, Guilong & Luo, Danglun, 2020. "GDP distortion and tax avoidance in local SOEs: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 582-598.
    14. Deng, Yuping & Wu, Yanrui & Xu, Helian, 2019. "Political turnover and firm pollution discharges: An empirical study," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    15. Wang, Fangjun & Xu, Luying & Zhang, Junrui & Shu, Wei, 2018. "Political connections, internal control and firm value: Evidence from China's anti-corruption campaign," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 53-67.
    16. Sattar Mansi & Jianping Qi & Han Shi, 2020. "Advertising and tax avoidance," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 479-516, February.
    17. Chen, Yunsen & Cui, Chenyu & Yang, Ting & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Political favouritism and investment efficiency," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    18. Elena Fernández-Rodríguez & Roberto García-Fernández & Antonio Martínez-Arias, 2019. "Influence of Ownership Structure on the Determinants of Effective Tax Rates of Spanish Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-19, March.
    19. Youngsoo Kim & Jung Chul Park, 2022. "Presidential power and stock returns," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 455-499, June.
    20. Gonschorek, Gerrit J. & Schulze, Günther G. & Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko, 2018. "To the ones in need or the ones you need? The political economy of central discretionary grants − empirical evidence from Indonesia," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 240-260.

    More about this item

    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:bla:acctfi:v:58:y:2019:i:5:p:1413-1443. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaanzea.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.