Corporate Social Responsibility and Profit Shifting
Iftekhar Hasan, Panagiotis I. Karavitis, Pantelis Kazakis, Woon Sau Leung
European Accounting Review,
im Erscheinen
Abstract
This paper examines the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and tax–motivated income shifting. Using a profit–shifting measure estimated from multinational enterprises (MNEs) data, we find that parent firms with higher CSR scores shift significantly more profits to their low-tax foreign subsidiaries. Overall, our evidence suggests that MNEs engaging in CSR activities acquire legitimacy and moral capital that temper negative responses by stakeholders and thus have greater scope and chance to engage in unethical profit-shifting activities, consistent with the legitimacy theory.
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Can Nonprofits Save Lives Under Financial Stress? Evidence from the Hospital Industry
Janet Gao, Tim Liu, Sara Malik, Merih Sevilir
SSRN Working Paper,
Nr. 4946064,
2024
Abstract
We compare the effects of external financing shocks on patient mortality at nonprofit and for-profit hospitals. Using confidential patient-level data, we find that patient mortality increases to a lesser extent at nonprofit hospitals than at for-profit ones facing exogenous, negative shocks to debt capacity. Such an effect is not driven by patient characteristics or their choices of hospitals. It is concentrated among patients without private insurance and patients with higher-risk diagnoses. Potential economic mechanisms include nonprofit hospitals' having deeper cash reserves and greater ability to maintain spending on medical staff and equipment, even at the expense of lower profitability. Overall, our evidence suggests that nonprofit organizations can better serve social interests during financially challenging times.
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Expectations, Infections, and Economic Activity
Martin S. Eichenbaum, Miguel Godinho de Matos, Francisco Lima, Sergio Rebelo, Mathias Trabandt
Journal of Political Economy,
Nr. 8,
2024
Abstract
This paper develops a quantitative theory of how people weigh the risks of infections against the benefits of engaging in social interactions that contribute to the spread of infectious diseases. Our framework takes into account the effects of public policies and private behavior on the spread of the disease. We evaluate the model using a novel micro panel dataset on consumption expenditures of young and older people across the first three waves of COVID-19 in Portugal. Our model highlights the critical role of expectations in shaping how human behavior influences the dynamics of epidemics.
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Too Poor to Be Green? The Effects of Wealth on the Residential Heating Transformation
Tobias Berg, Ulf Nielsson, Daniel Streitz
SSRN Working Paper,
2024
Abstract
Using the near-universe of Danish owner-occupied residential houses, we show that an exogenous increase in wealth significantly increases the likelihood to switch to green heating. We estimate an elasticity of one at the median of the wealth distribution, i.e., a 10% increase in wealth increase raises green heating adoption by 10%. Effects are heterogeneous along the wealth distribution: all else equal, a redistribution of wealth from rich households to poor households can significantly increase green heating adoption. We further explore potential channels of our findings (pro-social preferences, financial constraints, and luxury goods interpretation). Our results emphasize the role of economic growth for the green transition.
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Archiv
Medienecho-Archiv 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 Dezember 2021 IWH: Ausblick auf Wirtschaftsjahr 2022 in Sachsen mit Bezug auf IWH-Prognose zu Ostdeutschland: "Warum Sachsens…
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Alumni
IWH-Alumni Das IWH pflegt den Kontakt zu seinen ehemaligen Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern weltweit. Wir beziehen unsere Alumni in unsere Arbeit ein und unterrichten diese…
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Medienecho
Medienecho Februar 2025 IWH: Die deutsche Anämie in: Wirtschaftswoche, 14.02.2025 Oliver Holtemöller: Mitreden vor der Wahl! Was hilft der Wirtschaft aus der Krise? in: NDR,…
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08.02.2024 • 3/2024
IWH-Insolvenztrend: Zahl der Firmenpleiten weiterhin hoch – Corona-Hilfen für schwache Unternehmen sind ein Grund
Nach dem Rekordwert im Dezember bleibt die Zahl der Insolvenzen von Personen- und Kapitalgesellschaften im Januar auf unverändert hohem Niveau, zeigt die aktuelle Analyse des Leibniz-Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH). Erklären lässt sich die heutige Lage auch mit den Staatshilfen während der Corona-Pandemie.
Steffen Müller
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The Importance of Credit Demand for Business Cycle Dynamics
Gregor von Schweinitz
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 21,
2023
Abstract
This paper contributes to a better understanding of the important role that credit demand plays for credit markets and aggregate macroeconomic developments as both a source and transmitter of economic shocks. I am the first to identify a structural credit demand equation together with credit supply, aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy in a Bayesian structural VAR. The model combines informative priors on structural coefficients and multiple external instruments to achieve identification. In order to improve identification of the credit demand shocks, I construct a new granular instrument from regional mortgage origination.
I find that credit demand is quite elastic with respect to contemporaneous macroeconomic conditions, while credit supply is relatively inelastic. I show that credit supply and demand shocks matter for aggregate fluctuations, albeit at different times: credit demand shocks mostly drove the boom prior to the financial crisis, while credit supply shocks were responsible during and after the crisis itself. In an out-of-sample exercise, I find that the Covid pandemic induced a large expansion of credit demand in 2020Q2, which pushed the US economy towards a sustained recovery and helped to avoid a stagflationary scenario in 2022.
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Oxytocin, Empathy, Altruism and Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donations
Irena Jukić, Dejan Kovač, Danijela Vuletić Čugalj
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 4,
2023
Abstract
We conducted a field experiment in the natural setting of blood donations to test how oxytocin relates to empathy and altruism. We randomly assigned blood donors in the Croatian Institute for Transfusion Medicine to three groups with the aim to induce different levels of empathy by showing a neutral video to the donors from the control group and an emotional to the donors from the first and second treatment groups. In addition to watching the emotional video, donors from the second treatment group are given a gift which relates to the emotional story from the video. We find no effect of our treatment on induced levels of oxytocin. Null effects of our treatments could be explained by the above average baseline levels of oxytocin and inability of our treatments to provoke emotional stimuli in blood donors. Nonetheless, for our empathy measures we find the effect of gift exchange on empathic concerns, but not on perspective taking. After our experimental treatments, we followed the return of our blood donors for a whole year. We find that only variable which consistently predicts return for blood donation in stated period is the number of previous donations. From policy perspective it is an important finding. Especially for hospitals and other blood providers when faced with time and resource constraints.
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