EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The impact of IP box regimes on the M&A market

Sebastien Bradley, Leslie Robinson and Martin Ruf

Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2021, vol. 72, issue 2

Abstract: Intellectual property (IP) box regimes reward ownership of successful technology by imposing lower tax rates on income derived from IP relative to other sources of business income. Coupled with explicit provisions regarding the eligibility of acquired IP, IP boxes may affect merger and acquisition (M&A) incentives through multiple channels. Applying panel difference-in-differences, triple-differencing, and event study methods, we examine the effects of these modified incentives on the volume of M&A transactions and acquisition probabilities. In regimes with strict nexus requirements, reduced taxation of IP income is associated with reductions in the number of deals and the probability of being acquired for patent-owning firms due to the potential loss of eligibility for preferential taxation. This effect dissipates where nexus requirements are relaxed, and significant positive effects of IP box tax savings in more permissive regimes point to increased after-tax valuations of merger-driven synergies.

Keywords: IP box; Tax policy; Acquisitions; M&A; Innovation; Patent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 H32 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016541012100063X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:72:y:2021:i:2:s016541012100063x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2021.101448

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Accounting and Economics is currently edited by J. L. Zimmerman, S. P. Kothari, T. Z. Lys and R. L. Watts

More articles in Journal of Accounting and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:72:y:2021:i:2:s016541012100063x