IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14121.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring the Location of Production in a World of Intangible Productive Assets, FDI, and Intrafirm Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Robert E. Lipsey

Abstract

As production comes to depend more on intangible productive assets, the location of production by multinational firms becomes increasingly ambiguous. The reason is that, within the firm, these assets have no clear geographical location, but only a nominal location determined by the firm's tax or legal strategies. The effects of these location ambiguities, and the resulting distortions for tax reasons of the location of production, are described and it is estimated that for U.S. firms' affiliates in a few tax havens alone, the exaggeration of value added in those locations amounted, in 2005, to about 4 percent of worldwide affiliate sales, and the exaggeration of sales to about 10 percent of worldwide affiliate sales. Some possibilities for estimating the location of production that could supersede the present dependence on accounting measures distorted by tax-saving policies are described.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert E. Lipsey, 2008. "Measuring the Location of Production in a World of Intangible Productive Assets, FDI, and Intrafirm Trade," NBER Working Papers 14121, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14121
    Note: IFM ITI PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14121.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dischinger, Matthias & Riedel, Nadine, 2011. "Corporate taxes and the location of intangible assets within multinational firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 691-707, August.
    2. Clemens Fuest & Thomas Hemmegarn & Fred Ramb, 2007. "How would the introduction of an EU-wide formula apportionment affect the distribution and size of the corporate tax base? An analysis based on German multinationals," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(5), pages 627-629, October.
    3. Fuest, Clemens & Hemmelgarn, Thomas & Ramb, Fred, 2006. "How would formula apportionment in the EU affect the distribution and the size of the corporate tax base? An analysis based on German multinationals," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2006,20, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Do Tax Havens Flourish?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 19, pages 65-100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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, Xuyang & Hindriks, Jean, 2023. "Multinational Taxation under Pressure: The Role of Tax Deductibility," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2023013, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Anna Leszczyłowska, 2016. "Provisions for Future Liabilities and Effective Corporate Income Tax Rate," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 57-72.
    3. Doina Radulescu & Doina Maria Radulescu, 2007. "From Separate Accounting to Formula Apportionment: Analysis in a Dynamic Framework," CESifo Working Paper Series 2122, CESifo.
    4. Li Liu & Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr & Dongxian Guo, 2017. "International Transfer Pricing and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Linked Trade-Tax Statistics in the UK," CESifo Working Paper Series 6594, CESifo.
    5. Vincent Bouvatier & Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Anne-Laure Delatte, 2017. "Banks Defy Gravity in Tax Havens," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03101505, HAL.
    6. Robert E. Lipsey, 2007. "Defining and Measuring the Location of FDI Output," NBER Working Papers 12996, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Anna Leszczyłowska, 2015. "Deductibility of Provisions under the CCCTB Proposal and Its Effects on Companies: The Case of Poland," European Financial and Accounting Journal, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(4), pages 19-31.
    8. Alice O. Nakamura & Leonard I. Nakamura & Masao Nakamura, 2012. "Building the Innovation Union: Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis," Working Papers 12-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Krautheim, Sebastian & Schmidt-Eisenlohr, Tim, 2011. "Heterogeneous firms, 'profit shifting' FDI and international tax competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1-2), pages 122-133, February.
    10. Lee, Namryoung & Swenson, Charles, 2016. "Effects of overseas subsidiaries on worldwide corporate taxes," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 47-59.
    11. Melle Marco C., 2014. "Eine europäische Bemessungsgrundlage für die Körperschaftsteuer? Konzeption und ordnungsökonomische Analyse / Conceptual design and constitutional economics analysis of a European tax base for corpora," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 133-156, January.
    12. Lisa Evers & Helen Miller & Christoph Spengel, 2015. "Intellectual property box regimes: effective tax rates and tax policy considerations," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(3), pages 502-530, June.
    13. Sébastien Laffitte & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Firms, Trade and Profit Shifting: Evidence from Aggregate Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 7171, CESifo.
    14. Ortmann, Regina & Sureth, Caren, 2014. "Can the CCCTB alleviate tax discrimination against loss-making European multinational groups?," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 165, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    15. Dominika Langenmayr & Franz Reiter, 2022. "Trading offshore: evidence on banks’ tax avoidance," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 797-837, July.
    16. Hines Jr., James R., 2010. "Income misattribution under formula apportionment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 108-120, January.
    17. Klein, Daniel & Ludwig, Christopher A. & Nicolay, Katharina, 2020. "Internal digitalization and tax-efficient decision making," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-051, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Weck, Stefan, 2021. "How do investors value the publication of tax information? Evidence from the European public country-by-country reporting," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-077, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Mohammed Mardan, 2019. "Tax Systems and Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 7940, CESifo.
    20. Sebastian Krautheim & Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr, 2016. "Wages and International Tax Competition," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 893-923, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    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:14121. 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.