Risk Shifting and Profit Shifting of Chinese Multinational Enterprises

光华讲坛——社会名流与企业家论坛第6537期

主题：Risk Shifting and Profit Shifting of Chinese Multinational Enterprises

主讲人：辽宁大学金融与贸易学院副院长 马湘君教授

主持人：西南财经大学国际商学院副院长 蒋为教授

讲座时间：5月31日 14:00-15:30

举办地点：诚正楼230

主办单位：国际商学院 一流学科培优集成创新平台“新发展格局与高水平对外开放研究团队” 科研处 

个人简介：

马湘君，辽宁大学教授、博士生导师，金融与贸易学院副院长兼中国经济研究院副院长，弗吉尼亚大学（University of Virginia）经济学博士。曾任对外经济贸易大学副教授、德勤税务美国（Deloitte Tax LLP）转移定价经济学家/经理（硅谷办公室）、北京大学国家发展研究院访问学者、商务部世界贸易组织司借调干部。研究方向为国际贸易、国际税收与跨国公司、应用微观经济学等，所著论文曾发表于Journal of International Economics等一流国际期刊，并曾主持国家自然科学基金、北京市社会科学基金等青年项目。主讲课程包括国际贸易、微观经济学、经济学原理等，曾获北京市青年教师基本功大赛二等奖、最佳教案奖，对外经济贸易大学优秀教学奖、青年教师基本功大赛一等奖、微课大赛三等奖、历年教学评比前 10%等荣誉。

内容摘要：

The existing literature in the profit shifting activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs) is mostly concentrated on developed countries, while the situation in developing countries may be different because their statutory corporate tax rates are relatively low and they often employ various preferential tax policies to attract foreign direct investment or develop domestic industries. This paper studies one implicit profit shifting strategy of Chinese MNEs, risk shifting, considering the Chinese preferential tax regime and using micro data of manufacturing firms. MNEs can shift profits to countries with low tax rates by shifting the operating risk involved in internal transactions. We find that when the corporate tax rate differential between China and the foreign country rises by 10%, the risk remaining in the Chinese parents decreases by 10% from the mean value, and the profit remaining decreases by 8.4%. The risk shifting effects are more significant among MNEs whose internal transactions involve more R&D risk, market risk, inventory risk, or credit risk, and among large MNEs; while less significant among MNEs with more domestic tax-saving instruments. We also estimate that the annual loss of corporate tax revenue in China is around $11.2 billion, which is 2.8% of the corporate tax base, lower than the estimates based on data of developed countries.