Artikkelen Patent boxes design, patents location, and local R&D er nå publisert i januarutgaven av Economic Policy.
Forskarar tilknytta Skatteforsk og EU-kommisjonen har analysert verkandene ved dei statig fleire pantentboksane rundt om i Europa. Forskarane har sett på om lavere skatt på inntekter fra immaterielle eiendeler (patenbokser) fører til meir R&D, eller om eksisterande patentar bare blir flytta til lavskatteregimer. Dei finn støtte for det siste.
Patent boxes have been heavily debated for their role in corporate tax competition. This paper uses firm-level data for the period 2000–12 for the top 2,000 corporate research and development investors worldwide to consider the determinants of patent registration across a large sample of countries. Importantly, we disentangle the effects of corporate income taxation from the tax advantage of patent boxes and exploit a new and original dataset on patent box features such as the conditionality on performing research in the country or their coverage. We find that patent boxes have a considerable effect on attracting patents, mostly because of their favourable tax treatment. Patents with high earnings potential are particularly sensitive. Patent boxes with a large coverage also have stronger effects on the location of patents. We also analyse the impact of patent boxes and their tax advantages on local R&D activities and find that R&D development conditions tend to attenuate the dominant fiscal effect of patent boxes.