The influence of taxes on foreign direct investment : systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The paper proposes a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of the corporate finance literature on tax and multinational investment, since the complexity of legislations and taxation is a challenge to researchers who seek to understand their influence on corporate financing decisions. It presents the most relevant papers about the influence of taxes on corporate capital structure, classifies and codifies the various characteristics of these articles, describes the strengths and weaknesses of the studies and provides an agenda and a research framework to address the key gaps in the current knowledge on the theme. Approach/Methodology/Design: The study classifies 41 selected articles cited in the WoS database. The papers are reviewed and their main contributions are identified. Findings: The results indicate that tax is a determinant for multinational companies. However, the complexity of the legislations implies problems in estimating and the results of these studies. Among the knowledge gaps identified, the estimation problems of the models stand out, due to the difficulty in calculating the tax proxies. The papers present opposite results for the same information bases and research problems, depending on how the tax independent variable is modulated. Practical Implications: The study will contribute positively to the understanding of foreign direct investments, world organizations, multinational companies and investors. Originality/Value: To the best of the authors´ knowledge, this is the first systematic review identifying what is missing in the literature on taxation and capital structure of multinationals, while offering recommendations for future studies.