조세정책과 직접투자: 모형과 자료의 적합성

Tax Effects on Foreign Direct Investment: Matching Data for Specifications

This paper has examined the validity of the specifications, theoretical underpinnings, and measurement of variables in the existing literature on tax effects on foreign direct investment. The absence of home tax effects in many empirical works is especially troublesome since this would miss two important channels for tax effects: effective tax rates on foreign source income and relative net rates of return among investment locations. Only a model encompassing both home tax and host tax variables could possibly explain the seemingly paradoxical result that a host tax hike may lead to an increase in foreign investment. Also problematic is the choice of direct investment measures for many regression studies. The direct investment data in the balance of payments account, the most commonly used measure, should not be regarded as representing the exact financing sources of fixed investment. One suggestion is to compare the extent and direction of tax effects using several alternative measures of direct investment including acquisition data and capital expenditure by a subsidiary.