Capital Structure and International Debt Shifting /

This paper presents a model of a multinational firm's optimal debt policy that incorporates international taxation factors. The model yields the prediction that a multinational firm's indebtedness in a country depends on a weighted average of national tax rates and differences between nati...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Laeven, Luc
Other Authors: Huizinga, Harry, Nicodeme, Gaetan
Format: Journal
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2007.
Series:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2007/039
Online Access:Full text available on IMF
Description
Summary:This paper presents a model of a multinational firm's optimal debt policy that incorporates international taxation factors. The model yields the prediction that a multinational firm's indebtedness in a country depends on a weighted average of national tax rates and differences between national and foreign tax rates. These differences matter because multinationals have an incentive to shift debt to high-tax countries. The predictions of the model are tested using a novel firm-level dataset for European multinationals and their subsidiaries, combined with newly collected data on the international tax treatment of dividend and interest streams. Our empirical results show that corporate debt policy indeed not only reflects domestic corporate tax rates but also differences in international tax systems. These findings contribute to our understanding of how corporate debt policy is set in an international context.
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Physical Description:1 online resource (37 pages)
Format:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Access:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students