Do Tax Havens Flourish?
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DO TAX HAVENS FLOURISH? James R. Hines Jr. Working Paper 10936 http://www.nber.org/papers/w10936 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 November 2004
I am indebted to Claudia Martinez for excellent research assistance, to her and to Rosanne Altshuler, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Daniel Mitchell, Joel Slemrod, and particularly James Poterba, for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. © 2004 by James R. Hines Jr.. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.
Do Tax Havens Flourish? James R. Hines Jr. NBER Working Paper No. 10935 November 2004 JEL No. H87, H25 ABSTRACT Tax haven countries offer foreign investors low tax rates and other tax features designed to attract investment and thereby stimulate economic activity. Major tax havens have less than one percent of the world's population (outside the United States), and 2.3 percent of world GDP, but host 5.7 percent of the foreign employment and 8.4 percent of foreign property, plant and equipment of American firms. Per capita real GDP in tax haven countries grew at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent between 1982 and 1999, which compares favorably to the world average of 1.4 percent. Tax haven governments appear to be adequately funded, with an average 25 percent ratio of government to GDP that exceeds the 20 percent ratio for the world as a whole, though the small populations and relative affluence of these countries would normally be associated with even larger governments. Whether the economic prosperity of tax haven countries comes at the expense of higher tax countries is unclear, though recent research suggests that tax haven activity stimulates
DO TAX HAVENS FLOURISH? James R. Hines Jr. Working Paper 10936 http://www.nber.org/papers/w10936 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 November 2004
I am indebted to Claudia Martinez for excellent research assistance, to her and to Rosanne Altshuler, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Daniel Mitchell, Joel Slemrod, and particularly James Poterba, for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. © 2004 by James R. Hines Jr.. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.
Do Tax Havens Flourish? James R. Hines Jr. NBER Working Paper No. 10935 November 2004 JEL No. H87, H25 ABSTRACT Tax haven countries offer foreign investors low tax rates and other tax features designed to attract investment and thereby stimulate economic activity. Major tax havens have less than one percent of the world's population (outside the United States), and 2.3 percent of world GDP, but host 5.7 percent of the foreign employment and 8.4 percent of foreign property, plant and equipment of American firms. Per capita real GDP in tax haven countries grew at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent between 1982 and 1999, which compares favorably to the world average of 1.4 percent. Tax haven governments appear to be adequately funded, with an average 25 percent ratio of government to GDP that exceeds the 20 percent ratio for the world as a whole, though the small populations and relative affluence of these countries would normally be associated with even larger governments. Whether the economic prosperity of tax haven countries comes at the expense of higher tax countries is unclear, though recent research suggests that tax haven activity stimulates