期刊名称：DIW Diskussionspapiere / Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
出版年度：2009
卷号：2009
出版社：Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
摘要：We estimate the impact of effective profit taxation on the financial leverage of
corporations on the basis of a pseudo-panel constructed from corporate tax
return micro data for the period 1998-2001, a period which saw the introduction
of a major corporate tax reform in Germany. The financial leverage is measured
by the ratio of long-term debt to total capital. Endogeneity of the effective
corporate tax rate is controlled for by an instrumental variable approach. Our
instrument for the observed effective tax rate is the counterfactual tax rate a
corporation would face in a particular period had there be no endogenous change
of its financial structure. This counterfactual is obtained from a detailed
microsimulation model of the corporate sector based on tax return micro data. We
find a statistically significant and relatively large positive effect of the tax
rate on corporate leverage: on average, an increase of the tax rate by 10
percent would increase the financial leverage by about 5 percent. We also find
that the debt ratio is less responsive for small corporations and for
corporations that benefit from various other forms of tax shields, in particular
depreciation allowances and tax loss carry-forward. However, tax effects do not
seem to depend on risk, although the level of economic risk does affect
corporate leverage.
关键词：financial leverage, financial structure, debt ratio, corporate income taxation,
corporate tax return data
