Globalization and U.S. Corporate Tax Policies: Evidence from Import Competition
利用美国给予中国永久正常贸易关系作为准自然实验，研究发现面临中国进口竞争加剧的美国制造业企业显著增加了减税活动，且该效应在管理层懈怠较高、产品市场多元化较低及行业变化较快的企业中更为明显。
This paper studies how globalization affects the corporate tax policies of U.S. manufacturing firms. Using U.S.-granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations as a quasi-natural experiment, we find a significant increase in tax reduction activities for firms facing higher exposure to Chinese imports. The effect is more pronounced for firms with higher managerial slack. We also find that the effect is stronger for firms in less diversified products market and faster changing industries. We also show that U.S. firms facing higher Chinese import competition are more likely to engage in other tax-motivated activities: acquisition of subsidiaries in low-tax regions and suspected transfer pricing. Furthermore, we explore the 2017 tax cut and the recent U.S.-China trade dispute and find that firms engage less in tax reduction activities after the 2017 tax cut and after the tariff increase for Chinese imports. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance.