We analyze how tax incentives (bonus depreciation) affect real investment choices of firms by exploiting an exogenous variation in regional tax regulation in former East Germany (Development Area Law, DAL). Our rich administrative panel data for the universe of German manufacturing firms at the...

Investor-driven "short-termism" is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered---rising levels of repurchases and dividends---is incomplete and misleading: it ignores...