We empirically investigate the effects of political uncertainty on corporate tax behavior. To identify the effects of political uncertainty, we construct a data set that tracks whether firms’ tax avoidance varies systematically around the occurrence of national elections. Our dataset includes firms exposed to 103 national elections in 30 countries. We find that corporate tax avoidance varies systematically across the election cycle, peaking in election years and declining the next year. The effect on tax avoidance is greatest for elections with greater electoral uncertainty, and for elections in countries with relatively lower quality of law, relatively weaker tax enforcement, and relatively lower book-tax conformity. The evidence suggests that firms use both conforming and nonconforming tax avoidance strategies, although the results for conforming tax avoidance are marginal.
We investigate the relation between tax avoidance and tax uncertainty, where tax uncertainty is the possibility of losing a claimed tax benefit upon challenge by a tax authority. On average, we find that tax avoiders, i.e., firms with relatively low cash tax rates, do bear significantly greater tax uncertainty than firms that have higher cash tax rates. However, we find that this relation is driven by firms with tax haven subsidiaries and high levels of R&D expense, proxies for intangible-related transfer pricing strategies. Thus, contrary to expectations, general tax avoidance (i.e., unrelated to tax havens) does not explain variation in tax uncertainty. The findings have implications for several puzzling results in the literature but also raise new questions.
We investigate Chinese firms’ use of variable interest entities (VIEs) to evade Chinese regulation on foreign ownership and list in the US. VIEs are explicitly designed to circumvent the intent of Chinese law on foreign control, and potentially exacerbate agency conflicts within the firm.
Sharing economy has risen rapidly in recent years, and it imposes several challenges for policy makers. This paper examines how a pioneer of sharing economy — Airbnb — affects local economy. Using venture capital infusions as plausibly exogenous shocks to Airbnb’s expansion into a new county, we find that Airbnb expansion leads to poorer hotel performance in the local county.
Firms should disclose information on material cyber-attacks. However, because managers have incentives to withhold negative information, and investors cannot discover most cyber-attacks independently, firms may underreport them. Using data on cyber-attacks that firms voluntarily disclosed, and those that were withheld and later discovered by sources outside the firm, we estimate the extent to which firms withhold information on cyber-attacks.
DaimlerChrysler’s origins date as far back as 1883, when its predecessor “Benz & Co. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik, Mannheim” was founded by Karl Benz in Germany. The Chrysler Corporation was founded in the United States in1925 by Walter P. Chrysler. In November 1998 Chrysler and Daimler Benz completed a $36 billion merger, forming DaimlerChrysler, the fifth largest automaker in the world with estimated sales of $160 billion.
ABN AMRO’s origins date as far back as 1824, when its predecessor Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij was founded in the Netherlands. More recently the Dutch-based international bank is the result of the 1991 merger of ABN bank and AMRO bank. Today, ABN AMRO ranks 10th in Europe and 22nd in the world based on tier 1 capital. It has over 3,000 branches in more than 60 countries, a staff of over1105,000 full-time equivalents and total assets of EUR 560 billion (as per end 2003). The firm is listed on several exchanges, including the Amsterdam, London and New York Stock Exchanges.
“When are you going to change this Children’s Safe Drinking Water program and make money for your company? Surely Procter & Gamble wants you to profit on the water purification technology—you can’t sustain your program as a non-profit!” Greg Allgood sighed internally at this question, as it seemed to surface frequently despite the continued and rapid growth of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) program at P&G. Allgood (Director of the CSDW program) was not actually frustrated with the query, as he had an easy answer ready. Rather, he wished that people could more easily see how his team’s non-profit work was adding greater value to the $80 billion dollar company than a for-profit sales model ever could. Procter & Gamble is a data-driven company, and after 24 years as a “Proctoid” he knew this better than anyone. Greg had significant qualitative and some quantitative information to support the idea that, in some cases, a non-profit business model could do much more for the bottom line than could a for-profit model. However, he knew that he needed to do even more to clarify this point for others.
Graham, N.C.-based Lindley Mills has been awarded the Family Business Award from the Triad Business Journal. Vice President of Marketing Caroline Lindley (BSBA '14, MBA '17) represents her family's 10th generation at the mill. She continues to work closely with the Family Enterprise Center, a Kenan Institute affiliate. Lindley also serves on the Kenan Institute's Kenan Scholars Board of Mentors.
Ruben Carbonell, Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University and a board member at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, was presented with the O. Max Gardner Award on May 24. The award is the most significant honor given to faculty by the UNC System Board. Carbonell was recognized for his contributions in engineering, healthcare, education and public policy.
We examine the link between endowment investment performance and the expertise of university board members. Harnessing detailed information on 11,019 members for 579 universities, we find that expertise in alternatives and larger professional networks are associated with higher allocations to alternatives and better investment results.
This article describes an American community survey and a survey of business owners of which the data are merged to assess the experiences of minority- versus white-owned small businesses between 2007 and 2012. This is highlighted due to it being a period encompassing the worst economic downturn since The Great Depression. White firms declined while minority firms grew rapidly. Despite recent efforts to create inclusive entrepreneurial and business ecosystems, however, minority business owners made little progress toward achieving equity or parity with white business owners. Policy prescriptions and implications for future research are discussed.
In Never Stop Learning, behavioral scientist and operations expert Bradley R. Staats describes the principles and practices that comprise dynamic learning and outlines a framework to help you become more effective as a lifelong learner. Replete with the most recent research about how we learn as well as engaging stories that show how real learning happens, Never Stop Learning will become the operating manual for leaders, managers, and anyone who wants to keep thriving in the new world of work.
Find out what opportunities the institute has for you. Join us for the 2018 annual Welcome Reception in the Kenan Center Dining Room.
Kenan Institute Senior Faculty Fellow Maryann Feldman and Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoyco-authored an op-ed published in The Guardian on why American cities should stop trying to attract big tech and offer up alternative strategies to boost local economies.
While recent literature has depicted status as an intangible asset that is firm‐specific and mobile, we have a limited understanding of whether status confers advantage in a way similar to other intangible assets. This study examines the macro‐structural contingencies that influence the marginal value of firm status as firms expand to new markets. Building on the literatures on status and social approval assets, as well as globalization and international management, we hypothesize that two conditions influence how valuable home‐country status will be in a given host country: the interconnectedness of the home and host countries, and their relative position in the global network. We test our hypotheses in a study of 187 venture capital (VC)‐backed biotechnology ventures in 19 countries between 1990 and 2006.
In this article, we develop a novel theoretical framework detailing what collective action problems and solutions arise in market formation and under what conditions. Our framework centers on the development of market infrastructure with three key factors that influence the nature and extent of collective action problems: perceived returns to contributions, excludability, and contribution substitutability. We apply our framework to diverse market formation contexts and derive a set of attendant propositions. Finally, we show how collective action problems and solutions evolve during market formation efforts and discuss how our framework contributes to strategic management, entrepreneurship, and organization literatures.
Research exploring investor reactions to sustainability has substantial empirical limitations, which we address with a large‐scale longitudinal financial event study of the first global sustainability index, DJSI World. The study highlights the importance of careful analysis and longitudinal global samples in making inferences about the financial effects of social performance.
In this paper, we develop a sociodemographic profile of the most vulnerable African American older adult households. To do so, we draw data from the 2011–15 American Community Survey, which contains linked housing and person records for a 5 percent sample of U.S. population. This dataset literally allows us to peer inside of African American older adult households and in the process identify the major barriers or obstacles to aging in place.
American Community Survey data are used to develop typologies of the generational dynamics and living arrangements of the estimated 1.6 million African American older adult households who will likely encounter the most difficulty aging in place. Policy recommendations and strategies are offered to address the specific barriers and challenges that must be overcome in order for these older adults to successfully live out their lives in their homes and community.