My research investigates the political economy of international tax cooperation, particularly in countries of the ‘Global South’. In my PhD project, I study why countries in South Asia participate in, or abstain from, international tax cooperation frameworks. My other research interests include the political economy of international institutions and attitudes towards fiscal policy.
You find a synopsis of current work in progress below.
Bureaucratic politics and institutional choice: Evidence from the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS (PhD Project)
When it comes to international tax cooperation, governments find themselves in a dilemma: while on the one hand cooperation to reduce tax avoidance would be beneficial for all governments, tax cooperation constrains the policy space of governments to engage in tax competition for foreign direct and portfolio investments. Tax competition is thus often seen as a major obstacle to meaningful international tax cooperation. Yet, initiatives such as the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS have seen a remarkable uptake around the world. This constitutes a puzzle: while some governments have joined the Inclusive Framework to reduce corporate tax avoidance and evasion, others justify their abstention with the need to preserve policy space for tax competition. These differences cannot be explained by macroeconomic indicators alone, as similar economies have arrived at different policy choices.
In my thesis, I explore how governmentes choose between competition and cooperation in international tax policy. The argument focuses on preferences of different parts of the government bureaucracy and their relative influence in the policy process. While some parts of the government bureaucracy may view the commitment to international tax cooperation as highly beneficial to their aims, others may be more concerned about the potential implications for tax competition. In the policy process, different parts of the government bureaucracy compete for influence, with the consequence that the final choice between tax competition and tax cooperation depends on the relative influence of different bureaucratic interest groups. I use original interviews with policymakers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam to substantiate these claims.
Business interests and institutional design in the international tax regime (in progress)
The role of multinational firms (MNEs) in global governance has so far primarily been studied in terms of their influence through lobbying on international agreements. But how do business interests shape the institutional structure of international regimes? More precisely, what role do businesses play in the transformation of an international regime from a predominantly bilateral to an emerging multilateral structure? Bringing together literature on business lobbying and institutional design, this paper investigates the institutional preferences of firms in the international tax transparency regime. Drawing on institutional design literature and existing accounts of corporate political strategy in international regimes, it first identifies the institutional implications of four ideal-typical political strategies (opposition, two version of hedging, and support) along five dimensions of an international regime: membership, coherence, formality, scope, and decision-making mechanisms. Drawing on a mix of secondary and primary sources, part two of the paper investigates the drivers of institutional preference of firms and their subsequent choices of lobbying strategies in the tax transparency regime.
Tax leaks and public opinion (with Vincent Arel-Bundock, Université de Montréal, in progress)
The recent years have seen a number of tax leaks, thereby pushing tax evasion and avoidance onto the public agenda. At the same time, growing inequality has prompted many Western states to reconsider the introduction of a wealth tax, and has prompted a tighter regulation of corporate tax evasion. How are both developments connected? How do tax leaks impact public opinion towards different forms of taxation? Tax leaks reveal a dimension of wealth and tax evasion strategies to protect it that is otherwise hidden to the public. The render questions about the size of the ‘fair share’ of contributions of different social groups towards the collective good more salient, thereby pointing to questions of redistribution, meritocracy, and the legitimacy of inequalities that are inherent in public debates about taxation. This paper therefore studies the impact of tax leaks on attitudes towards wealth, personal income, corporate taxation, and meritocracy through a survey experiment conducted in Germany and the UK.