The economic geography of offshore incorporation in tax havens and offshore financial centres: the case of Chinese MNEs

Abstract

. (2015) 'The economic geography of oshore incorporation in tax havens and oshore nancial centres : the case of Chinese MNEs.', Journal of economic geography., 15 (1). pp. 103-128. Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbt040Publisher's copyright statement:This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Geography following peer review. The version of record Peter J. Buckley, Dylan Sutherland, Hinrich Voss, and Ahmad El-Gohari (2015) 'The economic geography of oshore incorporation in tax havens and oshore nancial centres : the case of Chinese MNEs.' Journal of Economic Geography, 15(1), 103-128 is available online at: http://joeg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/12/jeg.lbt040. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

Is the Strategic Asset Seeking Investment Proclivity of Chinese MNEs Different to that of Developed Market MNEs? A Comparative Analysis of Location Choice and Orientation

“…Unlike official FDI data, these sources use global ultimate ownership 1 to identify parent firms. As such, they avoid the aforementioned problem associated with the use of onward journey and round-trip FDI which plagues officially compiled FDI statistics (Beugelsdijk et al 2010;Buckley et al 2015). While the firm-level focus allows us to overcome issues associated with aggregated stock and flow FDI data, it also allows us to directly collect data on the numbers of patents and trademarks found in the US targets of our investing MNEs, as well as other important firm-level data in the investing firm.…”

How Chinese Financial Centers Integrate into Global Financial Center Networks: An Empirical Study Based on Overseas Expansion of Chinese Financial Service Firms

“…And while Dubai houses a large number of financial firms, there are few in Seoul or Tokyo despite the proximity to and close economic linkages to China. The British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, the two leading offshore financial centers, rank second and fourth as hosting cities for overseas Chinese financial service firms, indicative of the Chinese corporate structures around the world through a number of jurisdictions offering tax advantages and/or secrecy intrans actions (Buckley et al, 2015).…”

The role of tax havens and offshore financial centers in Asia-Pacific networks: evidence from firm-subsidiary connections

“…Further, the overly strong influence of the Chinese state limits not only the degree to which companies globalize, but also how this globalization plays out geographically. As Buckley et al (2013) state, "the most important reason for Chinese firms to specifically favor the Cayman Islands as a base for their listing vehicles is that it allows them to minimize their costs of raising capital" (p.115). Thus, the relative prevalence of the Hong Kong-BVI-Cayman triad evinces a relatively straightforward pattern in the majority of Chinese cases.…”

“…Both SSE and SZSE display China's strong connection to Hong Kong, serving as an important entrepôt for Chinese goods, labor, and capital. In Chinese corporate structures, the Cayman Islands or BVI play an important role in circumventing certain "imperfections" (Buckley et al, 2013) in the Chinese capital market (Xiao, 2004). Furthermore, as Fichtner (2016) adds, "Chinese MNEs have been found to channel direct investment through OFCs (directly and also indirectly via Hong Kong) not only to minimize taxes ('round-tripping') but also to conceal the ownership of assets and to gain access to foreign capital markets" (p.1046).…”