Taxes, investments and asset pricing : An empirical analysis

The three essays cover different fields of corporate and individual investments as well as the area of security pricing. The first essay “Tax Avoidance as a Driver of Mergers & Acquisitions?” tests if acquirers systematically implement tax planning strategies at target-level. The second paper “Restricted Tax Loss Transfer and Business Cycle Effects” examines the question how limitations to passing on losses through acquisitions adversely affect investor behavior. The last study “Capital Gains Taxes and Long-term Return Reversal: Evidence from Pole to Pole” extends the scope of the previous two essays by focusing on shareholder-level taxation. It investigates the link between capital gains taxes and anomalous stock price changes. All papers are based on sound underlying economic theories and serve the mere purpose to provide empirical evidence of analytical expectations. That way, theoretical predictions are either statistically validated or might have to be reconsidered in the light of unexpected empirical results