At A Cost: the Real Effects of Transfer Pricing Regulations

Ruud de Mooij and Li Liu

No 2018/069, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Unilateral adoption of transfer pricing regulations may have a negative impact on real investment by multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper uses a quasi-experimental research design, exploiting unique panel data on domestic and multinational companies in 27 countries during 2006-2014, to find that MNC affiliates reduce their investment by over 11 percent following the introduction of transfer pricing regulations. There is no significant reduction in total investment by the MNC group, suggesting that these investments are most likely shifted to affiliates in other countries. The impact of transfer pricing regulations corresponds to an increase in the ``TPR-adjusted'' corporate tax rate by almost one quarter.

Keywords: WP; parent company; cost of capital; gross investment; tax rate; profit shifting; foreign direct investment; corporate tax policy; multinational firms; MNC investment; company group; investment response; ratio variable; MNC group; Transnational corporations; Transfer pricing rules; Corporate income tax; Transfer pricing; Thin capitalization rules; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2018-03-23
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=45734 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: At a Cost: The Real Effects of Transfer Pricing Regulations (2020)
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:imf:imfwpa:2018/069

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().