Do corporate taxes affect employee welfare? Evidence from workplace safety

IF 3.3 3区 管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE
Daniel Bradley , Connie X. Mao , Chi Zhang
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

We examine the impact of tax policy on worker safety that exploits spatial discontinuity in treatment and control establishments stemming from state-level corporate tax changes. The granularity of our data and econometric approach allows us to exploit within-firm, across-establishment variation in worker safety shedding light on the real effects of headquarter versus plant-level decisions. Plant-level injury rates increase with tax hikes in establishment states, but not with those in headquarter states, highlighting the importance of plant-level decisions. We explore three plausible non-mutually exclusive mechanisms to help explain these findings ─ safety investment, leverage, and labor stress channels. We find that in the presence of a tax hike, firms reduce safety-related investments, and the tax effect on injury rates is exacerbated for firms that increase leverage and for firms where employees work longer hours and seasonal workers are used. Overall, our findings suggest that tax increases lead to negative welfare outcomes for employees, with no similar benefit accruing for tax cuts.

公司税会影响员工福利吗?来自工作场所安全的证据
我们研究了税收政策对工人安全的影响,该政策利用了由州一级公司税变化引起的治疗和控制机构的空间不连续性。我们的数据粒度和计量经济学方法使我们能够利用公司内部、跨企业的工人安全差异,揭示总部与工厂一级决策的实际影响。在建制州,工厂层面的伤害率会随着税收的增加而增加,但在总部州则不会,这凸显了工厂层面决策的重要性。我们探讨了三种看似不相互排斥的机制来帮助解释这些发现──安全投资、杠杆作用和劳动压力渠道。我们发现,在税收增加的情况下,企业减少了与安全相关的投资,对于那些增加杠杆率的企业和那些员工工作时间更长、使用季节工的企业来说,税收对伤害率的影响加剧了。总体而言,我们的研究结果表明,增税会导致员工的负面福利结果,而减税不会产生类似的好处。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
4.80
自引率
2.80%
发文量
75
期刊介绍: The Journal of Accounting and Public Policy publishes research papers focusing on the intersection between accounting and public policy. Preference is given to papers illuminating through theoretical or empirical analysis, the effects of accounting on public policy and vice-versa. Subjects treated in this journal include the interface of accounting with economics, political science, sociology, or law. The Journal includes a section entitled Accounting Letters. This section publishes short research articles that should not exceed approximately 3,000 words. The objective of this section is to facilitate the rapid dissemination of important accounting research. Accordingly, articles submitted to this section will be reviewed within fours weeks of receipt, revisions will be limited to one, and publication will occur within four months of acceptance.
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