This paper examines earnings management around the reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% as enacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Building on a theoretical model that considers a higher level of book-tax conformity of ‘real earnings management’ (REM) relative to...

We investigate a tax avoidance strategy where firms use the ambiguity inherent in tax reporting to classify indirect costs as research and development (R&D) expenditures to take advantage of the R&D tax credit. We label this tax practice “strategic R&D classification”. We find a one standard...

Using a sample of firms experiencing exogenous CEO departures, we investigate whether firms with overconfident CEOs avoid more tax. We find robust evidence of a positive relation between proxies for corporate tax avoidance and CEO overconfidence. Because our empirical tests use a panel of...

To what extent do consumers boycott in response to corporate tax planning? Anecdotes suggest consumer boycotts are a meaningful deterrent to tax planning, but empirical evidence on their frequency and impact is lacking. We undertake a comprehensive study to examine how consumers’ purchase...

This paper studies whether tax policies in developed nations affect developing economies through cross-border investments by multinational firms. We study firm investment responses to a major U.K. tax reform that drastically reduced the income tax burden for U.K.-based firms. Our identification...