Multinational profit shifting by mis-pricing of intra-firm trade is a major concern for less developed countries (LDCs). Many have enacted transfer pricing rules in order to constrain this type of tax avoidance behavior. Yet, not much is known on the rules' fiscal and economic effects. We offer...

Using a large data set of European firms, this paper provides evidence that operations at multinational headquarters are significantly more profitable than operations at their foreign subsidiaries. The effect turns out to be robust and quantitatively large. Our findings suggest that the...

Corporate patents are perceived to be the key profit-drivers in many multinational enterprises (MNEs). Moreover, as the transfer pricing process for royalty payments is often highly intransparent, they also constitute a major source of profit shifting opportunities between multinational...

Intangible assets are one major source of profit shifting opportunities due to a highly intransparent transfer pricing process. Our paper argues that multinational enterprises (MNEs) optimize their profit shifting strategy by locating shifting-relevant intangible property at affiliates with a...

Over the past decade, several countries augmented their national tax law by transfer pricing legislations in order to limit opportunities for tax-motivated transfer price distortions and the associated relocation of multnational income from their borders. The aim of this paper is to empirically...

In recent years several countries have augmented their national tax laws by transfer pricing legislations which intend to limit the leeway of multinational firms to exploit international corporate tax rate differences and relocate profit to low-tax affiliates by distorting intra-firm transfer...