IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxecpp/v77y2025i3p885-904..html

Banks defy gravity in tax havens

Author

Listed:
  • Vincent Bouvatier
  • Gunther Capelle-Blancard
  • Anne-Laure Delatte

Abstract

This article examines the international activity of banks. We use a gravity framework and country-by-country reports (CbCR) to predict the turnover of European Union (EU) banks worldwide, including jurisdictions usually considered tax havens. Our results show that: (1) about half of the activity of EU banks in tax havens, which accounts for 17% of their global activity, is not explained by standard gravity factors; (2) abnormal activity is concentrated in only a few tax havens (Luxembourg, Hong Kong, and Singapore); and (3) abnormal activity has been stable since the introduction of CbCR.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincent Bouvatier & Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Anne-Laure Delatte, 2025. "Banks defy gravity in tax havens," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 885-904.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:77:y:2025:i:3:p:885-904.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpaf003
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Godar & Giulia Aliprandi & Tommaso Faccio & Petr Janský & Katia Toledo Ruiz, 2024. "The long way to tax transparency: lessons from the early publishers of country-by-country reports," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(2), pages 593-634, April.
    2. Giulia Aliprandi & Mona Baraké & Paul-Emmanuel Chouc, 2021. "Have European Banks left tax haven? Evidence from country-by-country data," Working Papers halshs-03350725, HAL.
    3. Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Vincent Fromentin & Jesse Grabowski, 2024. "The geography of European financial centers: 1993–2020," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(8), pages 2143-2168, November.
    4. Fatica, Serena & Gregori, Wildmer, 2018. "Profit shifting by EU banks: evidence from country-by-country reporting," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2018-04, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    5. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Vay, Heiko, 2020. "On the determinants and effects of corporate tax transparency: Review of an emerging literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Dutt, Verena K. & Nicolay, Katharina & Vay, Heiko & Voget, Johannes, 2019. "Can European banks' country-by-country reports reveal profit shifting? An analysis of the information content of EU banks' disclosures," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-042, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Minetti, Raoul & Romanini, Giacomo & Ziv, Oren, 2025. "Banking complexity in the global economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Vincent Vicard, 2019. "The Exorbitant Privilege of High Tax Countries," Working Papers 2019-06, CEPII research center.
    9. Vincent Bouvatier & Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Anne-Laure Delatte, 2025. "Banks defy gravity in tax havens," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 885-904.
    10. Vincent Vicard, 2023. "Correction: Profit Shifting, Returns on Foreign Direct Investments and Investment Income Imbalances," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(2), pages 574-575, June.
    11. Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Petr Janský & Thomas Tørsløv, 2021. "Correction to: Multinational corporations and tax havens: evidence from country‑by‑country reporting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(6), pages 1562-1562, December.
    12. Lorenzo Garlanda-Longueville & Mathias Lé & Kevin Parra Ramirez, 2025. "Why Do Banks Have So Much Debt In Tax Havens?," EconomiX Working Papers 2025-43, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    13. Murphy Richard & Janský Petr & Shah Atul, 2019. "BEPS Policy Failure—The Case of EU Country-By-Country Reporting," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2019(1), pages 63-86, January.
    14. Dutt, Verena K. & Nicolay, Katharina & Spengel, Christoph, 2021. "Reporting behavior and transparency in European banks' country-by-country reports," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-019, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Peter Gerbrands & Brigitte Unger & Joras Ferwerda, 2022. "Bilateral responsive regulation and international tax competition: An agent‐based simulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 760-780, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

    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:oup:oxecpp:v:77:y:2025:i:3:p:885-904.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oep .

    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.