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Taxes, Institutions and Foreign Diversification Opportunities

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Author Info
Mihir A. Desai
Dhammika Dharmapala

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Abstract

Investors can access foreign diversification opportunities through either foreign portfolio investment (FPI) or foreign direct investment (FDI). By combining data on US outbound FPI and FDI, this paper analyzes whether the composition of US outbound capital flows reflect efforts to bypass home country tax regimes and weak host country investor protections. The cross-country analysis indicates that a 10% decrease in a foreign country's corporate tax rate increases US investors' equity FPI holdings by 21%, controlling for effects on FDI. This suggests that the residual tax on foreign multinational firm earnings biases capital flows to low corporate tax countries toward FPI. A one standard deviation increase in a foreign country's investor protections is shown to be associated with a 24% increase in US investors' equity FPI holdings. These results are robust to various controls, are not evident for debt capital flows, and are confirmed using an instrumental variables analysis. The use of FPI to bypass home country taxation of multinational firms is also apparent using only portfolio investment responses to within-country corporate tax rate changes in a panel from 1994 to 2005. Investors appear to alter their portfolio choices to circumvent home and host country institutional regimes.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13132.

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Date of creation: May 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13132

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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  1. Dhammika Dharmapala, 2008. "What Problems and Opportunities are Created by Tax Havens?," Working Papers 0820, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Mihir A. Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2007. "Taxes and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from JGTRRA's Treatment of International Dividends," NBER Working Papers 13281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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