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The effect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 on corporate investment11The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee, Heitor Almeida (editor), Novia Chen, Scott Dyreng, Ed Maydew, Sean McGuire, Volkan Muslu, Hrvoje Kurtovic, Richard Price, Brian Rountree, Karen Nelson, Antonio de Vito, Nisreen Salti, Jack Stecher, and Ryan Wilson for helpful comments. We especially thank Jan-Axel Wittlinger for extensive help on previous versions of this paper

Author

Listed:
  • Crawford, Steven
  • Markarian, Garen

Abstract

This study examines the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) on U.S. corporate investment. We examine U.S. firms and compare them to Canadian firms from 2010 to 2019 in a multivariate firm fixed-effects difference-in-differences analysis. Our results indicate that investment increases for U.S. firms relative to Canadian firms after the tax cuts. We also find that capital intensive and financially constrained firms increase investment the most. We explore how the TCJA impacted firm payouts and find some evidence that the tax cuts are associated with increased dividends. The paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the effects of the TCJA on corporate investment which have been debated extensively by politicians, journalists, tax policy experts, and academics.

Suggested Citation

  • Crawford, Steven & Markarian, Garen, 2024. "The effect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 on corporate investment11The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee, Heitor Almeida (editor), Novia Chen, Scott Dyreng, Ed Maydew, Sean McGuire, Volkan Muslu, Hrvoje Kurtovic, Richard Price, Brian R," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:87:y:2024:i:c:s0929119924000816
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102619
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