Firms with heterogeneous profitability: An argument for pick-the-winner strategies in tax and competition policy?

企业异质性模型在最近的国际贸易理论和实证文献中扮演着重要的角色。然而，到目前为止，它们很少被用来分析经济政策问题，尽管公司之间盈利能力差异的经验相关性基本上是无可争议的。在此背景下，本项目旨在分析企业异质性对税收和竞争政策的影响。本后续建议中涉及的一个重要问题是，生产力较高的公司往往是出口商或从事外国直接投资的公司成本异质的模式是否为歧视性税收或经济政策提供了理由。这种"挑选赢家"的战略在实践中经常出现，例如，跨国公司的实际税负低于在本国经营的公司。另一个应用是在信贷市场，企业的异质性对银行的贷款政策造成外部影响，从而为纠正税收政策提供了潜在的理由。最后，对本课题理论分析中提出的一些假设也进行了实证检验。除了回答各自的研究问题，我们还旨在开发可用于分析进一步政策问题的易于处理的模型。新的建模策略是必要的，因为模型与公司的异质性通常是复杂的，因此很难适用于特定的政策背景。另一方面，一些重大政策建议的重要分配影响，例如在欧盟实行统一的共同公司税基，或减少跨国公司的税收优惠，不能从假定公司是同质的模型中得出。

Models with firm heterogeneity play an important role in the recent theoretical and empirical international trade literature. They have, however, only rarely been used so far to analyse issues of economic policy, even though the empirical relevance of profitability differences between firms is largely undisputed. Against this background this project aims to analyse the implications of firm heterogeneity for tax and competition policies. One important question addressed in this follow-up proposal is whether models with cost heterogeneity of firms, where more productive firms tend to be exporters or engage in foreign direct investment, offer a rationale for discriminatory tax or economic policies. Such ‘pick-the-winner’ strategies are frequently observed in practice, for example in a lower effective tax burden on multinational vis-à-vis nationally operating firms. Another application is in the credit market, where firm heterogeneity causes external effects in the lending policies of banks, thus offering a potential rationale for corrective tax policies. Finally, some of the hypotheses derived in the theoretical analyses of this project shall also be tested empirically. In addition to answering the respective research question, we also aim to develop tractable models that can be used to analyse further policy issues. New modeling strategies are needed because models with firm heterogeneity are typically complex and therefore difficult to apply to a particular policy context. On the other hand important allocative implications of major policy proposals, such as the introduction of a common consolidated corporate tax base in the EU, or the reduction of tax privileges for multinational firms, cannot be derived from models that assume firms to be homogeneous.