Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Capital Structure and International Debt Shifting

Contents:

Author Info

  • Harry Huizinga
  • Luc Laeven
  • Gaëtan Nicodème

Abstract

This paper presents a model of a multinational firm’s optimal debt policy that incorporates international taxation factors. The model yields the prediction that a multinational firm’s indebtedness in a country depends on a weighted average of national tax rates and differences between national and foreign tax rates. These differences matter as multinationals have an incentive to shift debt to high-tax countries. The predictions of the model are tested using a novel firm-level dataset for European multinationals and their subsidiaries, combined with newly collected data on the international tax treatment of dividend and interest streams. Our empirical results show that a foreign subsidiary’s capital structure reflects local corporate tax rates as well as tax rate differences vis-à-vis the parent firm and other foreign subsidiaries, although the overall economic effect of taxes on leverage appears to be small. Ignoring the international debt shifting arising from differences in national tax rates woudunderstate the impact of national taxes on debt policies by about 25%.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/53928/1/RePEc_sol_wpaper_07-015.pdf
Our checks indicate that this address may not be valid because: 500 Can't connect to dipot.ulb.ac.be:443 (certificate verify failed). If this is indeed the case, please notify (Benoit Pauwels)
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles in its series Working Papers CEB with number 07-015.RS.

as in new window
Length: 65 p.
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published by:
Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:07-015

Contact details of provider:
Postal: CP114/03, 42 avenue F.D. Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles
Phone: +32 (0)2 650.48.64
Fax: +32 (0)2 650.41.88
Email:
Web page: http://difusion.ulb.ac.be
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: corporate taxation; financial structure; debt shifting;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicolás S., 1945-, 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Working papers 1523-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  2. Assaf Razin & Joel Slemrod, 1990. "Taxation in the Global Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number razi90-1, July.
  3. Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, 1988. "Do Taxes Affect Corporate Financing Decisions?," NBER Working Papers 2632, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J, 1970. "Marginal Stockholder Tax Rates and the Clientele Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(1), pages 68-74, February.
  6. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
  7. Julian Alworth & Giampaolo Arachi, 2001. "The Effect of Taxes on Corporate Financing Decisions: Evidence from a Panel of Italian Firms," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 353-376, August.
  8. Altshuler, Rosanne & Grubert, Harry, 2003. "Repatriation taxes, repatriation strategies and multinational financial policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 73-107, January.
  9. DeAngelo, Harry & Masulis, Ronald W., 1980. "Optimal capital structure under corporate and personal taxation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 3-29, March.
  10. James R. Hines, Jr. & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1990. "Coming Home to America: Dividend Repatriations by U.S. Multinationals," NBER Working Papers 2931, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
  12. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1991. " The Theory of Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 297-355, March.
  13. Frances Ruane & Padraig Moore, 2005. "Taxation and the Financial Structure of Foreign Direct Investment," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp88, IIIS.
  14. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May.
  15. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2005. "Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(3), pages 791-833, August.
  16. Fred Ramb & Alfons J. Weichenrieder, 2005. "Taxes and the Financial Structure of German Inward FDI," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 141(4), pages 670-692, December.
  17. John R. Graham, 2000. "How Big Are the Tax Benefits of Debt?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1901-1941, October.
  18. Rafael LaPorta & Florencio Lopez de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1788, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  19. Roger H. Gordon & Young Lee, 1999. "Do Taxes Affect Corporate Debt Policy? Evidence from US Corporate Tax Return Data," NBER Working Papers 7433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines, Jr., 2003. "A Multinational Perspective on Capital Structure Choice and Internal Capital Markets," NBER Working Papers 9715, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  21. Booth, L. & Asli Demirgu-Kunt, V.A. & Maksimovic, V., 1999. "Capital Structure in Developing Countries," Rotman School of Management - Finance 00-001, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
  22. James R. Hines, Jr. & Eric M. Rice, 1994. "Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business," NBER Working Papers 3477, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  23. Jack Mintz & Alfons Weichenrieder, 2005. "Taxation and the Financial Structure of German Outbound FDI," CESifo Working Paper Series 1612, CESifo Group Munich.
  24. Hines, James Jr., 1994. "Credit and deferral as international investment incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 323-347, October.
  25. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-75, May.
  26. Alon Brav & John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey & Roni Michaely, 2003. "Payout Policy in the 21st Century," NBER Working Papers 9657, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  27. Hodder, James E & Senbet, Lemma W, 1990. " International Capital Structure Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1495-1516, December.
  28. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. " What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-60, December.
  29. Vijay Jog & Jianmin Tang, 2001. "Tax Reforms, Debt Shifting and Tax Revenues: Multinational Corporations in Canada," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 5-25, January.
  30. Grubert, Harry, 1998. "Taxes and the division of foreign operating income among royalties, interest, dividends and retained earnings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 269-290, May.
  31. Franklin Allen & Antonio Bernardo & Ivo Welch, . "A Theory of Dividends Based on Tax Clienteles," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 15-98, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
  32. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, . "Taxes, Financing Decisions, and Firm Value," CRSP working papers 334, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
  33. Franklin Allen & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Payout Policy," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 01-21, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Allen, Franklin & Michaely, Roni, 2003. "Payout policy," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 337-429 Elsevier.
  34. Kenneth A. Froot & James R. Hines, Jr., 1995. "Interest Allocation Rules, Financing Patterns, and the Operations of U.S. Multinationals," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations, pages 277-312 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  35. Shapiro, Alan C., 1978. "Financial Structure and Cost of Capital in the Multinational Corporation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(02), pages 211-226, June.
  36. Graham, John R., 1996. "Debt and the marginal tax rate," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 41-73, May.
  37. Hovakimian, Armen & Hovakimian, Gayane & Tehranian, Hassan, 2004. "Determinants of target capital structure: The case of dual debt and equity issues," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 517-540, March.
  38. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1984. " New Evidence that Taxes Affect the Valuation of Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(5), pages 1397-1415, December.
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 in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. European Public Finance (ECON-O-403)

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:07-015

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Benoit Pauwels).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.