Fiscal and environmental policy : three essays on the effect on firms' investment and productivity

Abstract

This thesis studies how fiscal and environmental policies affect firms' behavior and economic performance. In chapter 1, co-authored with Stefan Lamp, we focus on the effect of tax adjustment on firms' investment decisions. Using a detailed narrative of tax changes in Germany covering 40 years of fiscal adjustments, we define and exploit the exogenous variation of tax bills to quantify the effect of tax changes on future investment plans of firms as well as on realized investment. In chapter 2, co-authored with Hélia Costa, we study how uncertainty over environmental policy affects firms' investment in low-carbon technologies. We model policy uncertainty in the context of an emission trading scheme and we develop a three period sequential model. The set-up of the model combines the industry and electricity sectors and encompasses both irreversible and reversible investment possibilities for firms. Finally, in chapter 3, I investigate whether international and domestic firms' productivity growth may be heterogeneously affected by environmental policy. Using a novel measure of environmental policy stringency and a panel of 11 OECD countries and 22 manufacturing sectors over the period 2000-2009, I estimate the difference in multi-factor productivity growth between multinational and domestic firms associated with a tightening of domestic environmental policy.