No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Essays On Taxation And Competition Under Firm Heterogeneity And Financial Frictions
Abstract
In this dissertation, I study the implications of taxation—and other regulations—in environments with financial frictions and firm entry. ^ The first chapter asks if there is a role for the regulation of the market of funds for firms that lack collateral and have a large uncertainty about their ability to generate profits. To answer the question, it characterizes optimal financial contracts in a competitive environment with risk, adverse selection, and limited liability. In this environment, competition among financial intermediaries always forces them to fund projects with negative expected returns both from a private and from a social perspective. Intermediaries use steep payoff schedules to screen entrepreneurs, but limited liability implies this can only be done by giving more to all entrepreneurs. In equilibrium, competition for the profitable entrepreneurs forces intermediaries to offer better terms to all customers. There is cross-subsidization among entrepreneurs and intermediation profits are zero. The three main features of the framework (competition, adverse selection, and limited liability) are necessary in order to get the inefficient laissez-faire outcome and a role for financial regulation. The result remains robust when firms can collateralize some portion of the credit as long as there is an unsecured fraction. These results provide a motive for regulating the market for unsecured financing to business start-ups. ^ The second chapter quantifies the effect of replacing the corporate income tax by a tax on business owners. This is done by constructing a model with heterogeneous firms, borrowing constraints, costly equity issuance and endogenous entry and exit. Calibrating the model to the U.S. economy, the chapter documents that replacing the corporate income tax with a revenue-neutral common tax on shareholders, the steady-state output would increase by 6.8% and total factor productivity (TFP) by 1.7%. Due to financial frictions, taxes levied at the corporate income level and at the shareholder level are not perfect substitutes because they distort different margins. In the model, firms are hit by productivity shocks and aim to adjust their capital stock in pursuit of optimal size. Optimal firm behavior often dictates reliance on retained earnings for growth. The corporate income tax reduces retained earnings available for investment, thereby delaying capital accumulation. As the retained earnings are not paid back to shareholders, the friction described does not occur when taxes are levied at the dividend level. The mechanism is amplified by endogenous entry and exit and by general equilibrium feedback.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
We evaluate whether state-of-the-art macro models featuring indivisible labor are consistent with modern quasi-experimental micro evidence by synthesizing evidence on both the intensive and extensive margins. We find that micro estimates are consistent with macro estimates of the steady-state (Hicksian) elasticities relevant for cross-country comparisons on both the extensive and intensive margins. However, micro estimates of intertemporal substitution (Frisch) elasticities are an order of magnitude smaller than the values needed to explain business cycle fluctuations in aggregate hours by preferences. The key puzzle to be resolved is why micro and macro estimates of the Frisch extensive margin elasticity are so different.
The authors examine how market structure affects credit allocation under universal risk neutrality and asymmetric information about borrowers. They consider both monopolistic and perf ectly-competitive banks and examine the role of collateral in each ca se. When a bank is a monopolist on the loan side, they find collatera l is never used and asymmetric information results in reduced bank le nding. Under perfect competition, collateral has a useful sorting rol e. Moreover, rationing is possible even with collateral availability and perfectly-elastic deposit supply. In this setting, the authors sh ow co-signers are valuable. Social welfare properties of the monopoly and competitive equilibria are also compared. Copyright 1987 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.
We examine investment behavior when firms face costs in the access to external funds. We find that despite the existence of liquidity constraints, standard investment regressions predict that cash flow is an important determinant of investment only if one ignores q. Conversely, we also obtain significant cash flow effects even in the absence of financial frictions. These findings provide support to the argument that the success of cash-flow-augmented investment regressions is probably due to a combination of measurement error in q and identification problems.
This paper adopts Keynes' view that shocks to the marginal efficiency of i nvestment are important for business fluctuations, but incorporates i t in a neoclassical framework with endogenous capacity utilization. I ncreases in the efficiency of newly produced investment goods stimula te the formation of "new" capital and more intensive utilization and accelerated depreciation of "old" capital. Theoretical and quantitat ive analysis suggests that the shocks and transmission mechanism stud ied here may be important elements of business cycles. Copyright 1988 by American Economic Association.
This paper proposes a method for computing tax rates using national accounts and revenue statistics. Using this method we construct time-series of tax rates for large industrial countries. The method identifies the revenue raised by different taxes at the general government level and defines aggregate measures of the corresponding tax bases. This method yields estimates of effective tax rates on factor incomes and consumption consistent with the tax distortions faced by a representative agent in a general equilibrium framework. These tax rates compare favorably with existing estimates of marginal tax rates, and highlight important international differences in tax policy.
According to basic economics, if demand exceeds supply, prices will rise, thus decreasing demand or increasing supply until demand and supply are in equilibrium; thus if prices do their job, rationing will not exist. However, credit rationing does exist. This paper demonstrates that even in equilibrium, credit rationing will exist in a loan market. Credit rationing is defined as occurring either (a) among loan applicants who appear identical, and some do and do not receive loans, even though the rejected applicants would pay higher interest rates; or (b) there are groups who, with a given credit supply, cannot obtain loans at any rate, even though with larger credit supply they would. A model is developed to provide the first theoretical justification for true credit rationing. The amount of the loan and the amount of collateral demanded affect the behavior and distribution of borrowers. Consequently, faced with increased credit demand, it may not be profitable to raise interest rates or collateral; instead banks deny loans to borrowers who are observationally indistinguishable from those receiving loans. It is not argued that credit rationing always occurs, but that it occurs under plausible assumptions about lender and borrower behavior. In the model, interest rates serve as screening devices for evaluating risk. Interest rates change the behavior (serve as incentive mechanism) for the borrower, increasing the relative attractiveness of riskier projects; banks ration credit, rather than increase rates when there is excess demand. Banks are shown not to increase collateral as a means of allocating credit; although collateral may have incentivizing effects, it may have adverse selection effects. Equity, nonlinear payment schedules, and contingency contracts may be introduced and yet there still may be rationing. The law of supply and demand is thus a result generated by specific assumptions and is model specific; credit rationing does exist. (TNM)
We develop a tractable framework for analyzing adverse selection economies with imperfect competition. Applications include markets for insurance, loans and financial assets. In our environment, uninformed buyers offer a general menu of screening contracts to trade with a privately informed seller. Imperfect competition is captured by allowing some sellers to trade with multiple buyers while others can only trade with one buyer (as in Burdett and Judd (1983)). Thus, the framework allows us to consider variations to the degree of competition in the market where one extreme is perfect competition a la Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) while the other extreme is the standard non-linear pricing problem of a monopolist. We show that the unique symmetric mixed strategy equilibrium can be summarized by a probability distribution of indirect utilities offered by each buyer to each type of seller. Furthermore, we prove that the equilibrium exhibits a strict rank-preserving property, in that different types of sellers have an identical ranking of different menus offered in equilibrium. The equilibrium features menus that are all separating, all pooling or a mixture of both. When both types of menus are offered in equilibrium, those which offer higher utility to the seller are more likely to be separating. Ex-ante welfare is maximized when competition is imperfect. Finally, we study the effects of various policies - such as mandates, non-discrimination requirements and other restrictions on contracts - on welfare and the extent of competition.
We incorporate endogenous technical change into a real business cycle small open economy framework to study the productivity costs of sudden stops. In this economy, productivity growth is determined by the entry of new firms and the expansion decisions of incumbent firms. New firms are created after the implementation of business ideas, yet the quality of ideas is heterogeneous and good ideas are scarce. Selection of the most promising ideas gives rise to a trade-off between mass (quantity) and composition (quality) in the entrant cohort. Chilean plant-level data from the sudden stop triggered by the Russian sovereign default in 1998 confirm the main mechanism of the model, as firms born during the credit shortage are fewer, but better. The quantitative analysis shows that four years after the crisis, 12.5% of the output deviation from trend is due to permanent productivity losses. Distortions in the entry margin account for 40% of the loss, and the remainder is due to distortion in the expansion decisions of incumbents.
In this paper we compute the optimal tax and education policy transition in an economy where progressive taxes provide social insurance against idiosyncratic wage risk, but distort the education decision of households. Optimally chosen tertiary education subsidies mitigate these distortions. We highlight the quantitative importance of general equilibrium feedback effects from policies to relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers: subsidizing higher education increases the share of workers with a college degree thereby reducing the college wage premium which has important redistributive benefits. We also argue that a full characterization of the transition path is crucial for policy evaluation. We find that optimal education policies are always characterized by generous tuition subsidies, but the optimal degree of income tax progressivity depends crucially on whether transitional costs of policies are explicitly taken into account and how strongly the college premium responds to policy changes in general equilibrium.
This paper tests whether the 2003 dividend tax cut - one of the largest reforms ever to a US capital tax rate - stimulated corporate investment and increased labor earnings, using a quasi-experimental design and US corporate tax returns from years 1996-2008. I estimate that the tax cut caused zero change in corporate investment and employee compensation. Economically, the statistical precision challenges leading estimates of the cost-of-capital elasticity of investment, or undermines models in which dividend tax reforms affect the cost of capital. Either way, it may be difficult to implement an alternative dividend tax cut that has substantially larger nearterm effects.
This study estimates the plant-level dynamics of productivity and employment in the United States. We use the Annual Survey of Manufactures from the US Census Bureau for the period 1972-1997. Applying the system generalized method of moments estimation developed by Blundell and Bond (1998), we find that productivity and employment processes are both strongly persistent.
We develop a dynamic trade-off model with endogenous choice of leverage, distributions, and real investment in the presence of a graduated corporate income tax, individual taxes on interest and corporate distributions, financial distress costs, and equity flotation costs. We explain several empirical findings inconsistent with the static trade-off theory. We show there is no target leverage ratio, firms can be savers or heavily levered, leverage is path dependent, leverage is decreasing in lagged liquidity, and leverage varies negatively with an external finance weighted average Q. Using estimates of structural parameters, we find that simulated model moments match data moments.
We quantify the importance of contracting frictions versus taxes for firms' capital structures. We estimate a dynamic contracting model in which a firm seeks debt financing from an lender and is subject to taxation. Because the firm can renege on the financing contract, the optimal contract is self-enforcing. Collateral constraints arise endogenously. Using data from firms in several industries, we find that a model without taxes fits the data as well as a model with taxes. The model detects changes in the value of collateral underlying a natural experiment concerning asset repossession. Quantitatively, taxes have a limited effect on leverage.
We propose a theory of the market for venture capital that links the excess return to venture equity to the scarcity of venture capitalists (VCs). High returns make the VCs more selective and eager to terminate nonperforming ventures because they can move on to new ones. The scarcity of VCs enables them to internalize their social value, and the competitive equilibrium is socially optimal. Moreover, the bilaterally efficient contract is a simple equity contract. We estimate the model for the period 1989–2001 and compute the excess return to venture capital, which turns out to be 8.6 percent. Finally, we back out the return of solo entrepreneurs, which is increasing in their wealth and ranges between zero and 3.5 percent.
This paper reviews the theory and evidence regarding the impact of taxation on corporate financial policy. Starting from a basic characterization of the classical corporate income tax and its effects, the analysis focuses on three areas of research: equity policy, debt-equity decisions, and choices regarding ownership structure and organizational form. The discussion stresses the distinction between nominal and more fundamental financial differences – for example, in the relationship between borrowing and leasing – and that financial policy involves choices not only among different underlying policies but also among characterizations of a given policy. The final section offers some brief reflections on the implications of continuing financial innovation.
Schumpeter first reviews the basic economic concepts that describe the recurring economic processes of a commercially organized state in which private property, division of labor, and free competition prevail. These constitute what Schumpeter calls "the circular flow of economic life," such as consumption, factors and means of production, labor, value, prices, cost, exchange, money as a circulating medium, and exchange value of money. The principal focus of the book is advancing the idea that change (economic development) is the key to explaining the features of a modern economy. Schumpeter emphasizes that his work deals with economic dynamics or economic development, not with theories of equilibrium or "circular flow" of a static economy, which have formed the basis of traditional economics. Interest, profit, productive interest, and business fluctuations, capital, credit, and entrepreneurs can better be explained by reference to processes of development. A static economy would know no productive interest, which has its source in the profits that arise from the process of development (successful execution of new combinations). The principal changes in a dynamic economy are due to technical innovations in the production process. Schumpeter elaborates on the role of credit in economic development; credit expansion affects the distribution of income and capital formation. Bank credit detaches productive resources from their place in circular flow to new productive combinations and innovations. Capitalism inherently depends upon economic progress, development, innovation, and expansive activity, which would be suppressed by inflexible monetary policy. The essence of development consists in the introduction of innovations into the system of production. This period of incorporation or adsorption is a period of readjustment, which is the essence of depression. Both profits of booms and losses from depression are part of the process of development. There is a distinction between the processes of creating a new productive apparatus and the process of merely operating it once it is created. Development is effected by the entrepreneur, who guides the diversion of the factors of production into new combinations for better use; by recasting the productive process, including the introduction of new machinery, and producing products at less expense, the entrepreneur creates a surplus, which he claims as profit. The entrepreneur requires capital, which is found in the money market, and for which the entrepreneur pays interest. The entrepreneur creates a model for others to follow, and the appearance of numerous new entrepreneurs causes depressions as the system struggles to achieve a new equilibrium. The entrepreneurial profit then vanishes in the vortex of competition; the stage is set for new combinations. Risk is not part of the entrepreneurial function; risk falls on the provider of capital. (TNM)
To study the long-run effect of dividend taxation on aggregate capital accumulation, we build a dynamic general equilibrium model in which there is a continuum of firms subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. We find that a dividend tax cut raises aggregate productivity by reducing the frictions in the reallocation of capital across firms. Our baseline model simulations show that when both dividend and capital gains tax rates are cut from 25 and 20 percent, respectively, to the same 15 percent level permanently, the aggregate long-run capital stock increases by about 4 percent. (JEL D21, E22, E62, G32, G35, H25, H32)
We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to study the impact of the 2003 dividend and capital gains tax cuts. In the model, firms are heterogeneous in productivity and make investment and financing decisions subject to capital adjustment costs, equity issuance costs, and collateral constraints. We show that when the dividend and capital gains tax cuts are unexpected and permanent, dividend payments, equity issuance, and aggregate investment rise immediately. By contrast, when these tax cuts are unexpected and temporary, aggregate investment falls in the short run. This fall allows firms to distribute large dividends initially in response to the temporary dividend tax cut. We also find that the effects of a temporary dividend tax cut are very different from those of a temporary capital gains tax cut. (Copyright: Elsevier)
In this survey, we review research on tax policy and business investment with four objectives. First, we use a simple prototypical dynamic neoclassical investment model to derive and explain effects of taxation on business investment in the long run and short run. Second, we describe and evaluate empirical tests of neoclassical channels, and we conclude that recent empirical evidence is consistent with neoclassical intuition. Third, we explore qualifications to basic theoretical models and their empirical tests raised by recent research on irreversibility and capital-market imperfections. Finally, we evaluate arguments for and against using tax policy to influence the level or timing of investment.While there is a consensus about the nature and magnitude of tax policy on investment demand considerable uncertainty remains regarding the structure of adjustment costs and the short-run dynamic effects of tax reforms. Consistent with our analysis of equilibrium investment outcomes, ascertaining the effects of tax policy on equilibrium investment requires additional research to examine responsiveness of interest rates, output, and the stock market to tax policy changes.
In recent years many contributions have appeared which examine the effects of corporate and personal taxation on firm financial policy. However, there has yet to appear an adequate explanation of why corporations continue to distribute dividends despite their disadvantageous tax treatment. We study this problem anew, in the context of an overlapping generations growth model with corporations financed by equity. Among our findings are: (1) capital owned by corporations may well be undervalued, even in the long run; (2) as a result of such undervaluation, firms may find it in the best interest of their stockholders to distribute dividends; and (3) an increase in the tax on distributions, while depressing the return to personal saving, may lead to an increase in the capital intensity of the economy. We also consider the criterion firms will use in evaluating new investment projects.
This paper characterizes the relationship between entrepreneurial wealth and aggregate investment under adverse selection. Its main finding is that such a relationship need not be monotonic. In particular, three results emerge from the analysis: (i) pooling equilibria, in which investment is independent of entrepreneurial wealth, are more likely to arise when entrepreneurial wealth is relatively low; (ii) separating equilibria, in which investment is increasing in entrepreneurial wealth, are most likely to arise when entrepreneurial wealth is relatively high and; (iii) for a given interest rate, an increase in entrepreneurial wealth may generate a discontinuous fall in investment.
Economic theorists traditionally banish discussions of information to footnotes. Serious consideration of costs of communication, imperfect knowledge, and the like would, it is believed, complicate without informing. This paper, which analyzes competitive markets in which the characteristics of the commodities exchanged are not fully known to at least one of the parties to the transaction, suggests that this comforting myth is false. Some of the most important conclusions of economic theory are not robust to considerations of imperfect information.
In this paper we show that, under a variety of alternative assumptions about the private information of loan applicants, a
competitive market for loans is characterized by screening. Banks separate out loan risks by offering higher loans at higher
interest rates. Depending on the nature of the informational asymmetry, it may be that applicants with less risky projects
select larger rather than smaller loans. Comparative statics implications are also examined. In particular, we explore the
effects of an increase in banks' cost of funds on average loan quality.
Recent developments in business cycle theory are reviewed. The principal finding is that the growth model, which was developed to account for the secular patterns in important economic aggregates, displays the business cycle phenomena once it incorporates the observed randomness in the rate of technological advance. The amplitudes and serial correlation properties of fluctuations in output and employment that the growth model predicts match those historically experienced in the United States. Further, the model continues to display the growth facts it was developed to explain.
We apply simulated method of moments to a dynamic model to infer the magnitude of financing costs. The model features endogenous investment, distributions, leverage, and default. The corporation faces taxation, costly bankruptcy, and linear-quadratic equity flotation costs. For large (small) firms, estimated marginal equity flotation costs start at 5.0% (10.7%) and bankruptcy costs equal to 8.4% (15.1%) of capital. Estimated financing frictions are higher for low-dividend firms and those identified as constrained by the Cleary and Whited-Wu indexes. In simulated data, many common proxies for financing constraints actually decrease when we increase financing cost parameters. Copyright 2007 by The American Finance Association.
To study the effects of 'double taxation' (first at the corporation level, then at the shareholder level this paper analyzes a model with a tax on all corporate distributions to equity owners and no other taxes. Contrary to the common view, the tax is shown to have no substitution effect and, in particular, no effect on the corporate choice between debt and equity (via retained earnings) finance. The analysis opens to question certain arguments commonly used to support integration of corporation and individual income taxes via 'dividend relief'.
A dynamic stochastic model for a competitive industry is developed in which entry, exit, and the growth of firms' output and employment is determined. The paper extends long-run industry equilibrium theory to account for entry, exit, and heterogeneity in the size and growth rate of firms. Conditions under which there is entry and exit in the long run are developed. Cross sectional implications and distributions of profits and value of firms are derived. Comparative statics on the equilibrium size distribution and turnover rates are analyzed. Copyright 1992 by The Econometric Society.
This paper provides new evidence that estimates based on aggregate data will understate the true procyclicality of total factor productivity. I examine plant-level data and show that some industries experience countercyclical reallocations of output shares among firms at different points in the business cycle, so that during recessions, less productive firms produce less of the total output, but during expansions they produce more. These reallocations cause overall productivity to rise during recessions, and do not reflect the actual path of productivity of a representative firm over the course of the business cycle. Such an effect (sometimes called the cleansing effect of recessions) may also bias aggregate estimates of returns to scale and help explain why decreasing returns to scale are found at the industry-level data.
Recent studies have shown that the dynamics of firms (growth, job reallocation, and exit) are negatively correlated with the initial size of the firm and its age. In this paper we analyze whether financial factors, in addition to technological differences, are important in generating these dynamics. We introduce financial-market frictions in a basic model of industry dynamics with persistent shocks and show that the combination of persistent shocks and financial frictions can account for the simultaneous dependence of firm dynamics on size (once we control for age) and on age (once we control for size).
Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. The review of economic studies
- M Arellano
- S Bond
M. Arellano and S. Bond. Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte carlo evidence
and an application to employment equations. The review of economic studies, 58(2):
277-297, 1991.
Employee option exercise and equity issuance motives. Available at SSRN 1920985
- S B Mckeon
S. B. McKeon. Employee option exercise and equity issuance motives. Available at SSRN
1920985, 2015.
Do financial frictions amplify fiscal policy? evidence from business investment stimulus
- E Zwick
- J Mahon
E. Zwick, J. Mahon, et al. Do financial frictions amplify fiscal policy? evidence from
business investment stimulus. Harvard University, 2014.