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This paper identifies a new channel through which bankrupt firms impose negative externalities on non-bankrupt peers. The bankruptcy and liquidation of a retail chain weakens the economies of agglomeration in any given local area, reducing the attractiveness of retail centers for remaining stores leading to contagion of financial distress. We find that companies with greater geographic exposure to bankrupt retailers are more likely to close stores in affected areas. We further show that the effect of these externalities on non-bankrupt peers is higher when the affected stores are smaller and are operated by firms with poor financial health.

Recent policy discussion has highlighted the variety of ways in which the world of work is changing. One development prevalent in some countries has been an increase certain forms of non-standard work. Is this beneficial, representing increased flexibility in the workforce, or detrimental, representing a deterioration in job quality driven by automation, globalisation and the market power of large employers? These changes also raise crucial issues for tax systems. Differences in tax treatment across employment forms may create tax arbitrage opportunities. This paper investigates the potential for such opportunities for eight countries. It models the labour income taxation, inclusive of social contributions, of standard employees and then of self-employed workers (with applicable tax rules detailed in the paper’s annex). The aim is to understand whether countries’ tax systems treat different employment forms differently, before approaching the broader question of whether differential treatment has merit when evaluated against tax design principles.

This paper examines the role of businesses in the tax system. In addition to being taxed directly, businesses act as withholding agents and remitters of tax on behalf of others. Yet the share of tax revenue that businesses remit to governments outside of direct tax liabilities is under-studied. This paper develops two measures of the contribution of businesses to the tax system and applies both these measures for 24 OECD countries. The results show that businesses play an important role in the tax system, both as taxpayers and as remitters of tax. However, care should be taken in interpreting any measure of the business tax burden, which must be understood against the backdrop of economic incidence. This paper highlights that the economic incidence, or burden, of a tax is not necessarily borne by the person on whom the tax is imposed under legal statute, but may be passed on to others in the economy, whether it be owners of capital, workers or consumers.

This paper identifies a new channel through which bankrupt firms undergoing liquidation impose negative externalities on their nonbankrupt peers. The liquidation of a retail chain weakens the economies of agglomeration in any given local area, reducing the attractiveness of retail centers for remaining stores and leading to contagion of financial distress. We find that firms with greater geographic exposure to bankrupt retailers are more likely to close stores in affected areas. We further show that the effect of these externalities on nonbankrupt peers is higher when affected stores are smaller and are operated by firms in financial distress.Received December 16, 2015; editorial decision June 28, 2018 by Editor Philip Strahan.