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Higher Seminar in Economics | Organizational Capacity and Profit Sharing with Daniela Scur

This paper analyses the effect of a firm’s organizational capacity on reported profitability of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Better organizational practices improve productivity and the potential taxable profits of firms. However, higher adoption of these practices may also enable more efficient allocation of profits across tax jurisdictions, lowering actual taxable profits. We present new evidence that MNE subsidiaries with better such practices, when located in high-tax countries, report significantly lower profits and have higher incidence of bunching around zero returns on assets.

Welcome to Higher Seminar in Economics organised by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Daniela Scur, from Cornell University who will be presenting a paper titled "Organizational Capacity and Profit Sharing" (written jointly with Kat Bilicka). 

Abstract

This paper analyses the effect of a firm’s organizational capacity on reported profitability of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Better organizational practices improve productivity and the potential taxable profits of firms. However, higher adoption of these practices may also enable more efficient allocation of profits across tax jurisdictions, lowering actual taxable profits. We present new evidence that MNE subsidiaries with better such practices, when located in high-tax countries, report significantly lower profits and have higher incidence of bunching around zero returns on assets. We show these results are driven by patterns consistent with profit shifting behavior. Further, using an event study design, we find that firms with better practices are more responsive to corporate tax rate changes. Our results suggest organizational capacity, especially monitoring-related practices, enable firms to engage in shifting profits away from their high-tax subsidiaries.

Daniela is an applied microeconomist with broad interests in organizational and personnel economics including the measurement of management quality, on the organization of family firms, and the importance of management quality in education systems. 

This is an online seminar which will take place via Zoom. The link to the seminar will be distrubted by invitation only. Please contact lyudmila.vafaeva@hhs.se if you would like to attend the seminar.

 

Dept. of Economics Economics Seminar Seminar in economics Webinar