IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/econpb/_44.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate Taxes Reduce Investment: New Evidence from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Link
  • Manuel Menkhoff
  • Andreas Peichl
  • Paul Schüle

Abstract

This policy brief provides novel empirical evidence on the causal effect of increasing corporate taxes on firm investment. The study combines unique data on investment plans and their realizations of firms in the German industrial sector and data on more than 1,400 local tax changes in the specific system of business taxation in Germany. We show that firms reduce their investments if corporate taxes were increased. An increase of corporate tax rates to stabilize fiscal revenues would be especially costly during recessions. We conclude that fiscal policy should therefore avoid higher corporate taxation in times of economic crisis. Moreover, our results have implications for the op-timal design of fiscal federalism in Germany. Strong dependencies of municipalities on local business tax revenues should be avoided, as they can be very harmful during recessions.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Link & Manuel Menkhoff & Andreas Peichl & Paul Schüle, 2022. "Corporate Taxes Reduce Investment: New Evidence from Germany," EconPol Policy Brief 44, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:econpb:_44
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/EconPol-PolicyBrief_44.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayaz, Mehmet & Fricke, Lea & Fuest, Clemens & Sachs, Dominik, 2023. "Who should bear the burden of COVID-19 related fiscal pressure? An optimal income taxation perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    2. Sebastian Link & Manuel Menkhoff & Andreas Peichl & Paul Schüle, 2024. "Downward Revision of Investment Decisions after Corporate Tax Hikes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 194-222, November.
    3. E. Mark Curtis & Daniel G. Garrett & Eric C. Ohrn & Kevin A. Roberts & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, 2021. "Capital Investment and Labor Demand," NBER Working Papers 29485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Eric Zwick & James Mahon, 2017. "Tax Policy and Heterogeneous Investment Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 217-248, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aria Ardalan & Sebastian G. Kessing & Salmai Qari & Malte Zoubek, 2023. "Does capital bear the burden of local corporate taxes? Evidence from Germany," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 194-23, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harju, Jarkko & Koivisto, Aliisa & Matikka, Tuomas, 2022. "The effects of corporate taxes on small firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    2. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Jacob, Martin & Schneider, Kerstin, 2023. "Do tax incentives affect investment quality?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Qiu, Larry D. & Wei, Xu & Zhou, Mohan & Zhou, Yi, 2024. "Resource, competition, and the equilibrium effects of innovation subsidies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 297-322.
    4. Clemens, Marius & Röger, Werner, 2024. "Rising allowances, rising rates — Can growth arise through business income tax reform despite government debt limit?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Sylvain Catherine & Thomas Chaney & Zongbo Huang & David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2022. "Quantifying Reduced‐Form Evidence on Collateral Constraints," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 2143-2181, August.
    6. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2019. "Geographic Cross-Sectional Fiscal Spending Multipliers: What Have We Learned?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-34, May.
    7. Bermperoglou, Dimitrios & Deli, Yota & Kalyvitis, Sarantis, 2019. "Investment tax incentives and their big time-to-build fiscal multiplier," Kiel Working Papers 2143, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Gundert Hannah & Nicolay Katharina & Steinbrenner Daniela & Wickel Sophia, 2024. "The Tax Attractiveness of EU Locations for Corporate Investments: A Stocktaking of Past Developments and Recent Reforms," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 97-132.
    9. Fan, Jianyong & Liu, Yu & Zhang, Qi & Zhao, Peng, 2022. "Does government debt impede firm innovation? Evidence from the rise of LGFVs in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    10. Martinsson, Gustav & Sajtos, László & Strömberg, Per & Thomann, Christian, 2022. "Carbon Pricing and Firm-Level CO2 Abatement: Evidence from a Quarter of a Century-Long Panel," Misum Working Paper Series 2022-10, Stockholm School of Economics, Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum).
    11. Stephen J. Terry, 2017. "Alternative Methods for Solving Heterogeneous Firm Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(6), pages 1081-1111, September.
    12. Emmanuel Saez & Benjamin Schoefer & David Seim, 2019. "Payroll Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Rent Sharing: Evidence from a Young Workers' Tax Cut in Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1717-1763, May.
    13. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Héctor Zárate-Solano & Andrés Camilo Gómez-Molina, 2018. "Elasticidad del ingreso corporativo gravable en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1046, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    14. Abhay Aneja & Nirupama Kulkarni & S. K. Ritadhi, 2021. "Consumption Tax Reform and the Real Economy: Evidence From India's Adoption of a Value‐Added Tax," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(3), pages 569-602, September.
    15. Brown, James R. & Martinsson, Gustav & Thomann, Christian, 2021. "Government lending in a crisis," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Matthew Smith & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2020. "Top Wealth in America: New Estimates and Implications for Taxing the Rich," Working Papers 264, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    17. Daniel G. Garrett & Eric Ohrn & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, 2020. "Tax Policy and Local Labor Market Behavior," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 83-100, March.
    18. Axelle Ferriere & Philipp Grübener & Gaston Navarro & Oliko Vardishvili, 2023. "On the Optimal Design of Transfers and Income Tax Progressivity," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 276-333.
    19. Qianbin Feng & Lexin Zhao & Mingxue Xu, 2023. "Tax Incentives and Maturity Mismatch between Investment and Financing: Evidence from China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 31(4), pages 1-36, July.
    20. Chafik, Omar, 2021. "Impôt sur les sociétés et investissement : quel lien au Maroc ?," Document de travail 2021-4, Bank Al-Maghrib, Département de la Recherche.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:econpb:_44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifooode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.