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| The Tax Rate Anchoring Effect and Enterprise Investment Decisions |
| ZHENG Dengjin, MENG Qingyu, YUAN Chun
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School of Accountancy, Central University of Finance and Economics;
Economics and Management Department, Civil Aviation Management Institute of China |
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Abstract When studying irrational decision-making characteristics,psychologists find that people are unable to objectively predict the probability of various future situations when the decision-making environment is uncertain. Instead, as expected under neoclassical economics, people selectively over-rely on some pieces of available information. The resulting process, in which inadequate adjustments and decisions are made under the influence of initial “anchor values,” is called “the anchoring effect.” However, few studies examine whether this irrational psychology affects investment decisions made by corporate executives. Therefore, this paper explores whether there is an anchoring effect that affects executive investment decisions.
The premises of the anchoring effect are that decisions carry uncertainty and that decision-making can be influenced by anchor values. This paper studies the anchoring effects of tax rates, which are an important factor in enterprise investment decision-making. When the effective tax rate is volatile, executives are unable to rationally predict all possible outcomes and accurately estimate future effective tax rates. If the existing enterprise effective tax rate is higher than the normal tax burden, executives may over-rely on the conspicuously heavy current effective tax burden and irrationally predict that future effective tax rates will be high. This irrational anchoring of executive expectations on existing tax rates will directly affect enterprise investment decisions.
Therefore, this paper examines the impacts of tax anchoring effects on enterprise decisions. As its initial sample, our analysis uses data regarding all of the non-financial A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2003 to 2018. The results reveal significant irrational tax rate anchoring behaviors that influence corporate investment decision-making and significantly reduce future investment expenditure. At times when the current enterprise tax rate is higher than either the contemporary average tax rate (inner anchor) or the equivalent corporate tax rate (external anchor), future investment spending is shown to decline significantly. In such cases, the inner anchoring effect is found to be much stronger than the external anchoring effect. Furthermore, this paper finds that the effects of tax rates on investments vary according to specific executive and corporate characteristics. With increasing age and tenure, executives with fiscal and tax backgrounds are all more able to effectively restrain irrational tax rate anchoring behaviors in their investment decisions. The influence of tax rate anchoring on investments increases with the volatility of the corporate tax rate. Overall, this paper finds that the underinvestment caused by the tax rate anchoring effect significantly reduces a company's operating performance and enterprise value. This conclusion reveals the negative economic consequences of tax rate anchoring in investment decision-making.
The potential contributions of this paper to the literature are as follows. First, irrational executive behaviors are important factors that affect senior investment decision-making. From the perspective of the tax rate anchoring effect, this paper enriches the empirical study of the influence of irrational factors on investment decisions. Second, from the perspective of tax rates, which are an important factor in investment decisions, this paper studies the impact of the tax rate anchoring effect on investment decision-making by senior executives. It thereby enriches relevant studies on the selection of anchor values in the anchoring effect, and thus provides evidence in support of existing behavioral economics theories (Zhu Jigao et al., 2017; Chen Shihua and Li Weian, 2016). Third, the literature mainly studies the direct impacts of tax rates and tax rate uncertainty on investments (Fazzari et al., 1988; Jacob et al., 2016; Meng Qingyu et al., 2020). This paper supplements traditional tax investment theory by enriching research on the influence of tax burdens on investment decisions from the perspective of the anchoring effect. Fourth, the conclusions of this paper have implications for the investment practices of enterprises. Solving the problem of tax rate anchoring in investment decision-making will help improve investment efficiency. Maintenance of the continuity and stability of macro tax policy will promote healthy and sustainable enterprise development.
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Received: 10 October 2019
Published: 02 December 2021
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