American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
How Do Tax Incentives Affect Investment and Productivity? Firm-Level Evidence from China
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 11,
no. 3, August 2019
(pp. 261–91)
Abstract
China initiated a major reform for capital taxation in 2004. Completed in 2009, it introduced permanent tax incentives for firms' investment in fixed assets. We explore a unique firm-level dataset from years 2005–2012 and utilize a quasi-experimental design to test the impacts of the reform on firms' investment and productivity. We find that, on average, the reform raised investment and productivity of the treated firms relative to the control firms by 38.4 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. We also show that the positive effects tend to be strengthened for firms with financial constraints.Citation
Liu, Yongzheng, and Jie Mao. 2019. "How Do Tax Incentives Affect Investment and Productivity? Firm-Level Evidence from China." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 11 (3): 261–91. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170478Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D24 Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- D25 Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
- G31 Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies; Capacity
- H25 Business Taxes and Subsidies including sales and value-added (VAT)
- O25 Industrial Policy
- P31 Socialist Enterprises and Their Transitions
- P35 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Public Economics