Abstract

Why do governments compete for investment through tax incentives when there is strong evidence that such packages are inconsequential to the locational decisions of foreign firms? Previous scholarship has attributed pro-business policies such as investment incentives to factors including the structural power of business in an era of international capital mobility, fiscal competition generated through political decentralization or electoral pandering by political leaders. However, there is currently little understanding about how individuals, in their role as decision-makers within government agencies, form beliefs over how to best attract investment. Building on insights from the bureaucratic politics and behavioral economics literatures, we anticipate investment promotion professionals are more likely to view investment incentives as effective attraction tools when they have limited previous experience in the private sector, when they work for investment promotion agencies that are more integrated into the national bureaucracy, and when employee performance is evaluated based on deals closed. We test these expectations with a conjoint survey experiment of investment promotion professionals designed to uncover respondents’ beliefs over the relative importance of different components of the investment environment to firms’ locational decisions, and find substantial support for our expectations.

摘要

当有强有力的证据表明此类一揽子计划对外国公司的选址决策无关紧要时，为什么政府还要通过税收优惠来竞争投资？先前的学术研究将投资激励等亲商政策归因于以下因素，包括国际资本流动时代企业的结构性权力、政治分权产生的财政竞争或政治领导人拉拢选举产生的财政竞争。然而，目前人们对个人作为政府机构的决策者如何形成对如何最好地吸引投资的信念知之甚少。基于官僚政治和行为经济学文献的见解，我们预计，当投资促进专业人士在私营部门的经验有限时，当他们为更融入国家官僚机构的投资促进机构工作时，以及当基于员工绩效进行评估时，他们更有可能将投资激励措施视为有效的吸引工具关闭交易。我们通过投资促进专业人士的联合调查实验来检验这些预期，旨在揭示受访者对投资环境的不同组成部分对公司选址决策的相对重要性的看法，并为我们的预期找到实质性支持。以及何时根据已完成的交易评估员工绩效。我们通过投资促进专业人士的联合调查实验来检验这些预期，旨在揭示受访者对投资环境的不同组成部分对公司选址决策的相对重要性的看法，并为我们的预期找到实质性支持。以及何时根据已完成的交易评估员工绩效。我们通过投资促进专业人士的联合调查实验来检验这些预期，旨在揭示受访者对投资环境的不同组成部分对公司选址决策的相对重要性的看法，并为我们的预期找到实质性支持。