Location Choice and Tax Responsiveness of Foreign Multinationals: Evidence from Asean Countries

This study uses a firm-level dataset to examine the impacts of taxation on multinationals’ decisions to set up new foreign subsidiaries in developing ASEAN countries. It finds that while taxes play a critical role in MNEs’ location choice decision, there is an important heterogeneity in the tax responsiveness. First, the tax sensitivity for high-tech firms is significantly lower than that for low-tech firms. Second, having a prior presence in the respective host country is associated with substantially lower tax responsiveness. Finally, in accordance with international-tax-avoidance considerations, the tax responsiveness is significantly diminished for affiliates with a connection to tax-haven countries.