Taxes and the location of production: evidence from a panel of US multinationals

This paper considers the factors that influence the locational decisions of multinational firms. A model in which firms produce differentiated products in imperfectly competitive markets is developed, in the spirit of Horstmann and Markusen (1992). Firms choose between a number of foreign locations; the outside options of exporting to or not serving the foreign market an explicitly modelled. Particular attention is paid to the impact of profit taxes, the separate roles of effective average and marginal tax rates are identified. The model is applied to a panel of US firms locating in the European market. Agglomeration effects are found to be important. The effective average tax rate plays a role in the choice between locations, but not in the choice of whether to locate production in Europe compared with one of the outside options. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science S.A.