Do dividend taxes affect corporate investment?

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Alstadsaeter, Annette; Jacob, Martin; Michaely, Roni
• 署名单位: Norwegian University of Life Sciences; WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management; Cornell University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.05.001
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 74-83
• 关键词: investment; Dividend taxation; Private Firms

摘要

We test whether dividend taxes affect corporate investments. We exploit Sweden's 2006 dividend tax cut of 10 percentage points for closely held corporations and 5 percentage points for widely held corporations. Using rich administrative panel data and triple-difference estimators, we find that this dividend tax cut does not affect aggregate investment but that it affects the allocation of corporate investment. Cash-constrained firms increase investment after the dividend tax cut relative to cash-rich firms. Reallocation is stronger among closely held firms that experience a larger tax cut. This result is explained by higher external equity in cash-constrained firms and by higher dividends in cash-rich firms after the tax cut. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.