Firm mobility and jurisdictions' tax rate choices: Evidence from immobile firm entry, with Dominika Langenmayr, Journal of Public Economics, 2021, 204.

Large and influential: Firm size and governments' corporate tax rate choice, with Nadine Riedel, Canadian Journal of Economics, 2021, 42(2), 812-839.

Public good provision and local employment: Evidence from grammar school closures in East Germany, with Ronny Freier and Christian Wittrock, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2021, 88(C).

Discretionary fiscal responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, with Michael P Devereux, İrem Güçeri and Eddy H F Tam (2020), Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36, 225-241.

How important are local knowledge spillovers of public R&D and what drives them? with Leonie Koch, Research Policy , 2020, 49(7), 104009.

Do polities parties matter? Evidence from German municipalities, with Nadine Riedel and Christian Wittrock, German Economic Review, 2020, 22(2), 153-198.

Local fiscal policies and their Impact on the number and spatial distribution of new firms, with Nadine Riedel and Christian Wittrock, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2020, 83.

Firms' financial and real responses to credit supply shocks: Evidence from firm-bank relationships in Germany, with Nadja Dwenger and Frank Fossen, Journal of Financial Intermediation, 2020, 41

Wind electricity subsidies — A windfall for landowners? Evidence from a feed-in tariff in Germany, with Peter Haan, Journal of Public Economics, 2018, 159, 16-32.

Personal taxation of capital income and the financial leverage of firms, with Frank Fossen, International Tax and Public Finance, 2016, 23(1), 48-81.

Firm level models – Specifically firm models based upon large data sets, with Hermann Buslei and Stefan Bach, In: Cathal O’Donoghue (ed.) Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling (Contributions to Economic Analysis, 2014, Volume 293, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Tax and occupancy of business properties: Theory and evidence from UK business rates

with Ben Lockwood and Eddy Tam

We study the impact of commercial property taxation on vacancy rates in the UK using regression kink and regression discontinuity designs. We exploit exogenous variations in commercial property tax rates from three different reliefs in the UK business rates system: small business rate relief (SBRR), retail relief and empty property exemption. A simple theoretical framework predicts: (i) relationships between rateable values and taxes, and vacancies; (ii) that SBRR has a sorting effect on the mix of businesses in small properties. Findings consistent with the theory suggest that SBRR increases the likelihood that a property is occupied by a small business, reduces the likelihood that it is occupied by a large business, and reduces the overall likelihood of being vacant. We estimate that the retail relief reduces vacancies by 90%, and SBRR relief by up to 54%

Worldwide and territorial taxation and multinational firms’ competitiveness

This study examines the importance of international tax rate differences for multinational firms' (MNE) competitiveness by investigating the impact of a regime change from worldwide to territorial taxation. Since worldwide taxation mitigates (partly) tax rate differences between countries, we expect that a regime change triggers the re-location of production towards low tax countries, increases exports from low tax to high tax countries as well as increases MNEs' market share in high tax countries on the costs of MNEs' competitors. We test these predictions using the UK tax regime change from worldwide to territorial taxation in 2009. Our results confirm the predictions: (i) UK MNEs have set up more subsidiaries in low tax countries and less in high tax countries after the regime change, (ii) exports from low tax to high tax countries increased in industries with a large share of UK MNEs after the regime change and (iii) sales of UK MNE competitors in high tax countries decreased after 2009.

Product-market competition and profit shifting of multinational enterprises

with Patrick Gauss, Michael Jähn, and Nadine Riedel

A flourishing literature quantifies the size and channels of multinational profit shifting. Real economic consequences of profit shifting are, in turn, less researched. In this paper, we assess the notion that multinational profit shifting may put competitors of shifting firms "at a competitive disadvantage" (OECD, 2013). Empirical identification relies on changes in transfer pricing rules that inhibit multinational profit shifting by strategic mis-pricing of intrafirm trade. Based on rich data for firms in Europe, we show that tighter transfer pricing provisions raise multinational firms’ effective tax costs and significantly increase the observed sales and profits of affected firms’ national competitors; national firms’ mark-ups, in turn, remain largely unchanged.