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There's No Place Like Home: The Profitability Gap between Headquarters and their Foreign Subsidiaries

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  • Matthias Dischinger
  • Bodo Knoll
  • Nadine Riedel

Abstract

Using data on European firms, this paper provides evidence that an overproportional fraction of multinational group profits accrues with the corporate headquarters. Quantitatively, the estimates suggest that headquarters are by around 25% more profitable than their foreign subsidiaries, whereas this gap tends to decline over time. The effect turns out to be robust against controlling for observed and unobserved heterogeneity between the entities. Analogous (although quantitatively smaller) effects are found for national groups. We discuss various welfare implications of our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Dischinger & Bodo Knoll & Nadine Riedel, 2014. "There's No Place Like Home: The Profitability Gap between Headquarters and their Foreign Subsidiaries," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 369-395, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:23:y:2014:i:2:p:369-395
    DOI: 10.1111/jems.12058
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    Cited by:

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    4. Carnevale, Marina & Nachum, Lilac & Korn, Helaine, 2017. "Why does MNE performance vary across countries?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1196-1207.
    5. Katarzyna Bilicka & Michael Devereux & Irem Güçeri, 2023. "Tax-Avoidance Networks and the Push for a “Historic” Global Tax Reform," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 57-108.
    6. Petr Pavlínek & Jan Ženka, 2016. "Value creation and value capture in the automotive industry: Empirical evidence from Czechia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(5), pages 937-959, May.
    7. Fatica, Serena & Gregori, Wildmer Daniel, 2020. "How much profit shifting do European banks do?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 536-551.
    8. Serena Fatica & Wouter Heynderickx & Andrea Pagano, 2020. "Banks, Debt And Risk: Assessing The Spillovers Of Corporate Taxes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(2), pages 1023-1044, April.
    9. Dominika Langenmayr & Rebecca Lester, 2013. "Taxation and corporate risk-taking," Working Papers 1316, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    10. Katarzyna Bilicka & André Seidel, 2020. "Profit shifting and corruption," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(5), pages 1051-1080, October.
    11. Dave Goyvaerts & Annelies Roggeman, 2020. "The Impact of Thin Capitalization Rules on Subsidiary Financing: Evidence from Belgium," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 23-51, March.
    12. Caroline Schimanski, 2018. "Do multinational companies shift profits out of developing countries?: How data availability may hide the evidence," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Jarle Møen & Dirk Schindler & Guttorm Schjelderup & Julia Tropina Bakke, 2019. "International Debt Shifting: The Value-Maximizing Mix of Internal and External Debt," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 431-465, September.
    14. Nicolay, Katharina & Nusser, Hannah & Pfeiffer, Olena, 2017. "On the interdependency of profit shifting channels and the effectiveness of anti-avoidance legislation," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-066, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Dominika Langenmayr & Franz Reiter, 2022. "Trading offshore: evidence on banks’ tax avoidance," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 797-837, July.
    16. Kimberly A. Clausing, . "Does tax drive the headquarters locations of the world’s biggest companies?," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    17. Fatica, Serena & Gregori, Wildmer, 2018. "Profit shifting by EU banks: evidence from country-by-country reporting," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2018-04, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    18. Goldbach, Stefan & Møen, Jarle & Schindler, Dirk & Schjelderup, Guttorm & Wamser, Georg, 2021. "The tax-efficient use of debt in multinational corporations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Schulte Sasse, Katharina & Watrin, Christoph & Weiß, Falko, 2020. "The alignment between reported profits and real activity in times of the BEPS Action Plan," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    20. Katarzyna Bilicka & Michael Devereux & İrem Güçeri & Katarzyna Anna Bilicka & Michael P. Devereux & Irem Guceri, 2024. "Tax Policy, Investment and Profit Shifting," CESifo Working Paper Series 11458, CESifo.
    21. Felix Hugger, 2019. "The Impact of Country-by-Country Reporting on Corporate Tax Avoidance," ifo Working Paper Series 304, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    22. Caroline Schimanski, 2018. "Do multinational companies shift profits out of developing countries?: How data availability may hide the evidence," WIDER Working Paper Series 52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    23. Matthias Dischinger & Bodo Knoll & Nadine Riedel, 2014. "The role of headquarters in multinational profit shifting strategies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 248-271, April.

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