Title: The complexity of tax haven usage

Speaker: Jing Xing, Professor, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: 10:00‑11:30, Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Venue: Room 306, Antai Haoran Building, Xuhui Campus, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Brief introduction of the content: 

We construct a novel global dataset tracing the ownership structures and subsidiary networks of multinational corporations (MNCs) from 2005 to 2021 and document a striking increase in the diversification of tax haven usage. Rather than concentrating offshore activities in a small number of jurisdictions, MNCs increasingly distribute tax haven subsidiaries across a broader set of locations, resulting in more complex and geographically dispersed offshore networks. We show that two factors are particularly important in explaining this trend: the expansion of anti-tax-avoidance regulations and the globalization of MNCs’ business operations. Together, our findings suggest that MNCs have responded to a changing regulatory environment and expanding international activities by adopting increasingly diversified tax haven structures, with important implications for the design and evaluation of anti-tax-avoidance policies.

Speaker's profile:

Jing Xing is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the Department of Finance, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research interests include public economics, public finance and taxation, and corporate finance. She holds a Bachelor of Economics (Finance Concentration) from Peking University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Oxford. She is a Cathay‑Pacific Swire Visiting Scholar under the Ministry of Education, and has led multiple projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Her research has appeared in leading international journals such as Journal of Public Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, and European Economic Review. She currently serves as the Editor‑in‑Chief of the journal at International Tax and Public Finance.

Welcome all!