【喜庆二十大・学术讲座】2023年7月8日（周六）09:00-11:30 陈晓光（西澳大利亚大学）

讲座系列：现代财税理论与政策第18场（学科发展系列讲座总期第35场）

讲座人：陈晓光（西澳大利亚大学商学院高级讲师）

时间：2023年7月8日（周六）09:00-11:30

地点：博学楼1222

主持人：毛捷（对外经济贸易大学教授、教务处处长）

讲座题目1： Differential Tax Rates and Rising Auditing Service — Evidence from a R&D Expense Super Deduction Policy in China

讲座摘要1：

China has experienced rapid growth in auditing, accounting, and tax services industry along with reforms, rising complexity and ambiguity of the tax system over the last two decades. In this paper, we particularly examine the impact of preferential tax policies on auditing service by exploiting the quasi-experiment of R&D Expense Super Deduction Policy in 2016. The policy provides more generous tax deduction for R&D activities in more eligible industries. That allows us to employ the difference-in-differences method to identify its effects. Our empirical study is mainly based on data from publicly listed companies in China （2010-2019） and Business Registration Data （2010-2020）. We first investigate the effect of the super deduction policy on auditing fee （intensive margin） and entry of auditing firms （extensive margin）. We then examine heterogeneous effects on companies’ auditing fee, deduction intensity, and re-classification of R&D related expenses along two dimensions: （1） companies with different initial R&D intensity; （2） auditing firms’ with different industry-specific auditing expertise. The baseline results show that the super deduction policy led to significant rises in auditing fee and auditing firms’ entry. The heterogeneous results suggest that a firm would spend more auditing fee, enjoy greater deduction, and re-classify more administrative costs as R&D expense, if the firm was more R&D intensive before the policy, or if the firm contracted with an auditing firm which has greater auditing expertise. Our findings suggest that auditing firms play a critical intermediary role between tax administrators and tax payers in response to differentiated or preferential tax treatment. It provides novel casual evidence on the effect of rising complexity and ambiguity in tax codes on the expansion of auditing industry.

讲座题目2： Tax Enforcement, Productivity Gain, and Reallocation — Evidence from a Fiscal Squeeze Experiment in China

讲座摘要2：

Developing countries are usually ailed by weak tax capacity. A rising number of studies have advocated stricter tax administration to raise government revenue. However, given the omnipresent tax-efficiency trade-off, will the tougher tax enforcement reduce production efficiency and further weaken tax base? We argue that it is not necessarily the case in presence of misallocation. We provide causal evidence on the effect of tax enforcement on aggregate productivity through resource reallocation across firms. Theoretically, improved tax enforcement with more tax hike on less productive firms can actually raise both aggregate productivity and tax revenue. Empirically, we employ the abolition of agricultural tax in 2005 across China as a natural fiscal squeeze experiment in which tougher tax enforcement was imposed on tax evading firms that were relatively unproductive. The Diff-in-Diff results during 2000-2007 show that the aggregate TFP increased through re-allocation: with cross-firm dispersion decreasing in two observable tax-wedges （effective VAT rates and other output distortions）, more productive firms expanded their market share. As a result, the tax enforcement generated revenue via three channels: （1） a higher average effective tax rate; （2） greater aggregate productivity; and （3） more total factor inputs in labour, capital, and raw materials. Counter-factual analysis suggests that the reallocation effect accounts for around half of the total revenue gain from the improved tax enforcement. The findings imply that better tax enforcement can bear double dividend both in productivity and revenue gain to an economy under misallocation.

主讲人简介：

Xiaoguang （Shawn） Chen is a Senior Lecturer at the Business School of the University of Western Australia. He is also a Research Affiliate of the TTPI at Australian National University, Research Fellow with the CCIE at Central University of Finance and Economics, the NIFS based at Tsinghua University, and the IPFT at Renmin University of China. His research focuses on how tax systems and rent extraction affect productivity, development and growth. His papers published in Journal of Public Economics （sole-authored）, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization （sole-authored）, Economic Letters （sole-authored）, International Tax and Public Finance, Journal of Tax Administration, China Economic Review, and in top Chinese journals including Social Science in China （×2, both are sole-authored in Chinese《中国社会科学》）, Economic Research Journal （×3, two are sole-authored, in Chinese《经济研究》）. His work received the Gregory Chow Best Paper Award, and Best Paper Award from the First Public Finance Forum of China.

讲座人主页：

https://sites.google.com/site/xgchenist/