Download or read book At A Cost: The Real Effects of Thin Capitalization Rules written by Ruud A. de Mooij and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-02-05 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thin capitalization rules (TCRs) aim to mitigate profit shifting by multinational corporations (MNCs) but, by raising the cost of capital for affected affiliates, can also negatively affect real investment. Exploiting unique panel data on multinational companies in 34 countries during 2006-2014, we estimate that the size of this adverse investment effect can be large, and dependent on the statutory corporate tax rate and the tightness of the safe-haven ratio. Negative investment effects are more pronounced for highly-levered firms for which TCRs are more likely to be binding.