The effectiveness of tax incentives in attracting investment: panel data evidence from the CFA Franc zone (original) (raw)

Impact of Tax Incentives on Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Africa

Sustainability

African countries have faced competition and several challenges to attract foreign direct investment given the role that FDIs play in the development process. Several efforts made have been futile because of numerous factors that play against the business environment for foreign investments. Our paper analyses the influence of tax incentives on foreign direct investment in African economies based on data from 2000–2018. We utilized panel data on forty (40) African countries and an econometric model of four proxies of tax incentives, after controlling other variables, with robust Random Effect as our discussion estimator. Our results revealed that FDI responds to lower corporate income tax (CTR). Furthermore, foreign direct investment predominates in African economies with longer tax holidays and withholding tax. However, tax concession is insignificant to the inflows of FDIs in Africa. Summarizing, our results recommend that without proper restructuring of the tax incentives to deal...

Do tax incentives attract foreign direct investment? The case of the Southern African Development Community

2017

The problem of low domestic savings is inherent in most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. This has motivated most of the SADC countries to institute policies that seek to attract foreign capital to cover the investment deficit that arises from low domestic savings rates. In separating individual tax incentives mainly used in the SADC region, this study gives a robust analysis on the impact of each tax incentive on FDI inflows into SADC countries. The tax incentives used in this study are: tax holidays, corporate income tax (CIT), reduced CIT in specific sectors and losses carried forward. The study, in consultation with data from the period 2004 to 2013 separates the SADC countries into four panels based on resource richness. Panel 1 includes the resources-rich countries, Panel 2 the resources-poor countries, Panel 3 all SADC countries, except South Africa and Panel 4 all the SADC countries. The study adopts a system Generalised Method of Moments (SYS GMM) met...

Econometric Analysis of the Impact of Taxes on Private Investment in Sub-Sahara Africa

2020

This study examines the impact of taxation and other macroeconomic factors on private investment in sub-Saharan Africa, taking the case of East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. By estimating a dynamic neo-classical investment model for developing countries using One-Step Difference GMM, the empirical results indicate that corporate income tax (CIT) and Value Added Tax (VAT) have significant and negative effect on private investment. The results also show that real interest rate is an important factor that explains the level of private investment in the EAC and SADC countries. Credit to private sector, though found to be statistically significant, the results suggests its effect is unexplainably negative and inconsistent with economic theories. The study finds no evidence, however, on the impact of personal income taxes, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, nominal exchange rate and inflation rate on private investment. On...

The Impacts of Tax Incentives in Attracting Foreign Direct Investment in Ethiopia

2015

This study examines the impacts of tax incentives in attracting FDI in Ethiopia from 1992 to 2013. The purpose of this research is to examine the inconsistent empirical evidence on the use of tax incentives in attracting FDI. The study adopts a mixed methods research where primary data is collected using unstructured interview with ERCA and MoFED officials in addition to this secondary data is also collected from various sources such as ERCA, MoFED, EIA, World Bank, Freedom House. Based on the time series analysis, the study found that, corporate tax rate has a negative and significant impacts on FDI (in aggregate) in Ethiopia while from the control variable inflation has a negative and significant impact on FDI (in aggregate) but GDP growth rate, political stability and trade openness found to be insignificant in attracting FDI in Ethiopia. Based on the random effect model, the study found that, tax holiday has positive and significant impacts on FDI (at sector level) but customs d...

Tax Incentives and Foreign Direct Investment Elationship in the East Africa Community Partner States

DBA-Africa Management Review, 2019

The relationship between tax incentives and Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) isone of the unresolved issues in public finance. The existing studies on theeffectiveness of tax incentives in attracting foreign investors differ depending onjurisdiction of research and the methodological approach employed. This studywas to establish the relationship between tax incentives and FDI in East AfricaCommunity Partner States. A panel descriptive study design was used todetermine the relationship between tax incentives and foreign direct investment inEast Africa Community Partner States, which included Tanzania, Rwanda,Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda. The study used panel secondary data, whichcovered a period of 16 years from 2002 to 2017. The study revealed that taxholidays and period of losses carried forward did not have statistically significantinfluence on FDI inflow. However, investment allowances had a positivestatistically significance influence on and FDI inflow in EAC. The studyconcluded t...