About CETAR
Background
During the past two decades, increasing globalization of markets put pressure on the institutional systems, in particular the tax and accounting system in many developed countries and forced significant changes in the structure of the national tax system and accounting regulations. The political debates demonstrate an ongoing interest in the assessment of reform options. In Germany, the debate focuses a) on institutional effects (tax reforms, accounting standards, capital market regulation) on location and investment decisions of multinational companies and fairness and b) on the assessment of tangible and intangibles and its implication for business valuation and decision-making. The Center for Tax and Accounting Research (CETAR), as a research center of competence, is founded to gain valuable insights on the effects of tax, accounting and related regulatory systems on business decisions. Members of CETAR want to bring up new cognitions about reforms being in the light of technical changes and globalization at the interface of research, entrepreneurial action and policy.
In the competition of tax and accounting systems, different countries bid for an inflow of mobile resources by offering a favorable tax treatment. In this competitive context countries still have elements of monopoly (for instance public goods), but they are contestable by migration. Therefore, the mechanism of “exit” and “voice” – the latter in the sense of disaccord – becomes relevant as a continuous appeal for evolutionary change. The limits of differentiation between countries are defined by mobile readiness and willingness, which is determined by utility and cost of location. This development has been advanced by many countries through the liberalization of capital markets. Striking examples for this process are the members of the European Union, which have on the one hand created a single European capital market and on the other hand have abolished the existing barriers for capital mobility, even for third party countries. Our projects shall analyze theoretically and by means of theoretically supported empirical methods the influence of taxation and accounting rules on entrepreneurial decisions and its implications for national and multinational firms.
The team is composed in the way that synergy effects come across as by complementary core competences. It is our aim to make use of a unique combination of team members from tax research (Diller, Maiterth, Müller, Niemann, Sureth-Sloane) and accounting and capital market experts (Kosi, Löffler, Schneider, Sievers, Uhde). We are in a position to competently analyze problems and give answers to questions at the interface of our disciplines. More specifically, our core expertise lies in the fields of Business Taxation, Accounting, Finance, Statistics and Econometrics.
Therewith institutional developments and questions can be ascertained by the members of CETAR combining competences from theory and methodology and looking from different perspectives as from a micro, business, capital market, and economic view.
CETAR represents a center for high-class analysis in the area of tax and accounting research. A platform for an international group of researchers, working together and forcing theoretical and empirical projects about quantitative tax and accounting research has been created by the foundation of CETAR. Next to an intensification of cooperative research, international scholars are being invited for guest lectures, presentations and discussions of ongoing research projects in order to contribute to the conjoint research as well as to assist a broader audience to get to know current tax and accounting problems.