
30 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Working Paper
Tax-motivated transfer mispricing in South AfricaThis paper provides the first direct systematic evidence of profit shifting through transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using South African transaction-level customs data, I directly test for transfer price deviations from arm’s-length...
Working Paper
Big and ‘unprofitable’Globally, the largest 0.001 per cent of firms earn roughly one-third of all corporate profits. Nonetheless, there is little understanding of how profit shifting differs across firm size. Using South African corporate tax returns from 2010–14, we...
Working Paper
Estimating the scale of profit shifting and tax revenue losses related to foreign direct investmentGovernments’ revenues are lower when multinational enterprises avoid paying corporate income tax by shifting their profits to tax havens. In this paper, we ask which countries’ tax revenues are affected most by this tax avoidance and how much. To...
Journal Article
Global Distribution of Revenue Loss from Corporate Tax Avoidance: Re-estimation and Country ResultsPart of Journal Special Issue Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
Working Paper
Do multinational companies shift profits out of developing countries?This study aims at providing causal evidence for tax-motivated profit-shifting out of developing countries, which, while often claimed to be the most affected, have been largely neglected in the literature. It uses global firm-level panel data from...
Working Paper
An evaluation of interest deduction limitations to counter base erosion in South AfricaThis paper aims to describe funding structures of companies liable for tax in South Africa and how this relates to other characteristics, including ownership, of the companies. The research that the paper reports on was performed as descriptive...
Working Paper
Illicit financial flows and the Global SouthIllicit financial flows (IFFs) constitute a major challenge for development in the Global South, as domestic resource mobilization is imperative for providing crucial public services. While several methods offer to measure the extent of IFFs, each...
Working Paper
The case of taxing multinational corporations in UgandaWe study how large domestic firms and multinational corporations compare in their effective tax rates and whether there is evidence of profit shifting out of Uganda. Using administrative data from the Uganda Revenue Authority and regression analysis...
Working Paper
Global profit shifting, 1975–2019This paper constructs time series of global profit shifting covering the 2015–19 period, during which major international efforts were implemented to curb profit shifting. We find that (i) multinational profits grew faster than global profits, (ii)...
Journal Article
The dominant role of large firms in profit shiftingTHIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | Globally, the largest 0.001 per cent of frms earn one-third of all corporate profts. Nonetheless, there is little understanding of how proft shifting difers across frm size. Using the universe of South African...
Journal Article
Illicit financial flows and developing countriesTHIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | Illicit financial flows (IFFs) constitute a major challenge for development in low-income countries, as domestic resource mobilization is imperative for providing crucial public services. This study focuses exclusively...
Blog
Empirical research is crucial for better tax enforcement in the developing world
I had the privilege to participate in the UNU-WIDER Winter School as one of the lecturers. In this blog, I explain my main takeaways for students and...
Journal Article
Tax-motivated transfer mispricing in South AfricaThis paper provides the first direct systematic evidence of profit shifting through transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using South African transaction-level customs data, the author directly tests for transfer price deviations from arm's...
Working Paper
Profit-shifting behaviour of emerging multinationals from IndiaThis paper examines the profit-shifting behaviour of emerging multinational firms from India. It is found that the before-tax profitability of subsidiaries differs according to whether they were established directly or via an Offshore Financial...
Working Paper
Profit shifting by multinational corporationsResearch on profit shifting by multinational corporations in developing countries is limited due to a lack of data. In this paper we use, for the first time, novel administrative data on the transactions of multinational corporations operating in...
Working Paper
Estimating profit shifting in South Africa using firm-level tax returnsUsing the universe of South African corporate tax returns for 2009–14, we estimate profit- and debt-shifting responses in South Africa. We find evidence that South African subsidiaries engage in profit shifting and that profit-shifting responses to...