We examine the effect of a large dividend tax cut on corporate investment efficiency by exploiting the 2003 personal taxation reform in the U.S. as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a difference-in-differences approach based on the probability that a firm’s marginal investor was an individual investor, we show that the 2003 dividend tax cut significantly improved the investment efficiency of U.S. listed firms. However, we find no evidence that the dividend tax cut increased the level of investment of U.S. listed firms. Further, we show that the tax cut increased investment efficiency by mitigating agency problems associated with the excessive free cash flows of overinvesting firms and by relaxing the financial constraints of underinvesting firms.

我们利用美国 2003 年的个人税制改革作为准自然实验，检验大幅削减股息税对企业投资效率的影响。我们使用基于公司的边际投资者是个人投资者的概率的差分法，表明 2003 年的股息税削减显着提高了美国上市公司的投资效率。然而，我们没有发现任何证据表明股息税的削减提高了美国上市公司的投资水平。此外，我们表明，减税通过减轻与过度投资公司的过度自由现金流相关的代理问题以及通过放松投资不足公司的财务约束来提高投资效率。