University of Hohenheim

About: University of Hohenheim is a education organization based out in Stuttgart, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Soil water. The organization has 8585 authors who have published 16406 publications receiving 567377 citations.

Earnings Shocks and Tax-Motivated Income-Shifting: Evidence from European Multinationals

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach to estimating the existence and magnitude of tax-motivated income shifting within multinational corporations. Existing studies of income shifting use changes in corporate tax rates as a source of identification. In contrast, this paper exploits exogenous earnings shocks at the parent firm and investigates how these shocks propagate across low-tax and high-tax multinational subsidiaries. This approach is implemented using a large panel of European multinational affiliates over the period 1995-2005. The central result is that parents’ positive earnings shocks are associated with a significantly positive increase in pretax profits at low-tax affiliates, relative to the effect on the pretax profits of high-tax affiliates. The result is robust to controlling for various other differences between low-tax and high-tax affiliates and for country-pair-year fixed effects. Additional tests suggest that the estimated effect is attributable primarily to the strategic use of debt across affiliates. The magnitude of income shifting estimated using this approach is substantial, but somewhat smaller than that found in the previous literature.

The AD775 cosmic event revisited: the Sun is to blame

Abstract: Aims Miyake et al (2012, Nature, 486, 240, henceforth M12) recently reported, based on 14 C data, an extreme cosmic event in about AD775 Using a simple model, M12 claimed that the event was too strong to be caused by a solar flare within the standard theory This implied a new paradigm of either an impossibly strong solar flare or a very strong cosmic ray event of unknown origin that occurred around AD775 However, as we show, the strength of the event was significantly overestimated by M12 Several subsequent works have attempted to find a possible exotic source for such an event, including a giant cometary impact upon the Sun or a gamma-ray burst, but they are all based on incorrect estimates by M12 We revisit this event with analysis of new datasets and consistent theoretical modelling Methods We verified the experimental result for the AD775 cosmic ray event using independent datasets including 10 Be series and newly measured 14 C annual data We surveyed available historical chronicles for astronomical observations for the period around the AD770s to identify potential sightings of aurorae borealis and supernovae We interpreted the 14 C measurements using an appropriate carbon cycle model Results We show that: (1) The reality of the AD775 event is confirmed by new measurements of 14 C in German oak; (2) by using an inappropriate carbon cycle model, M12 strongly overestimated the event’s strength; (3) the revised magnitude of the event (the global 14 C production Q = (11−15) × 10 8 atoms/cm 2 ) is consistent with different independent datasets ( 14 C, 10 Be, 36 Cl) and can be associated with a strong, but not inexplicably strong, solar energetic particle event (or a sequence of events), and provides the first definite evidence for an event of this magnitude (the fluence >30 MeV was about 45 × 10 10 cm −2 ) in multiple datasets; (4) this interpretation is in agreement with increased auroral activity identified in historical chronicles Conclusions The results point to the likely solar origin of the event, which is now identified as the greatest solar event on a multimillennial time scale, placing a strong observational constraint on the theory of explosive energy releases on the Sun and cool stars