Abstract: Corporate Governance and Taxation Mihir A. Desai* Harvard University and NBER Alexander Dyck Harvard University and Luigi Zingales University of Chicago, NBER, and CEPR First Draft: March 2003 This Draft: October 2003 Abstract This paper analyzes the interaction between corporate taxes and corporate governance. We show that the characteristics of a taxation system impact the size of private benefits managers are able to extract. A higher tax rate increases the amount of income a manager would divert, while stronger tax enforcement reduces it and, in so doing, can raise the stock market value of a company in spite of the increase in the tax burden. Firm and market reactions to tax enforcement changes in Russia provide evidence that is consistent with this prediction. We also show that the corporate governance system affects the level and sensitivity of tax revenues to tax changes. When the corporate governance system is ineffective (i.e., when it is easy to divert income) or when ownership concentration levels are high, an increase in the tax rate can reduce tax revenues generating a corporate version of the Laffer-curve. We test the Laffer-curve predictions in a panel of countries. Consistent with the model, we find that corporate tax rate increases have smaller (in fact, negative) effects on revenues when ownership is more concentrated and corporate governance is weaker. * We thank Mehmet Beceren, Kent McNellie, Bill Simpson, and James Zeitler for their valuable research assistance. We also thank Michael Cragg, Henry Hansmann, Raghu Rajan, Andrei Shleifer, Rene Stulz and participants at seminars at Harvard Law School, the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan, the Kennedy School of Government, the NBER University Research Conference, the NBER Public Economics Summer Institute, Princeton University, Vanderbilt University, and Moscow’s NES for their comments. Desai and Dyck thank the Division of Research at Harvard Business School and Zingales the Center for Research on Security Prices and the George Stigler Center at the University of Chicago for financial support.
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 23
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