James R. Hines Jr.


James R. Hines Jr. is an American economist and a founder of academic research into corporate-focused tax havens, and the effect of U.S. corporate tax policy on the behaviors of U.S. multinationals. His papers were some of the first to analyse profit shifting, and to establish quantitative features of tax havens. Hines showed that being a tax haven could be a prosperous strategy for a jurisdiction, and controversially, that tax havens can promote economic growth. Hines showed that use of tax havens by U.S. multinationals had maximized long-term U.S. exchequer tax receipts, at the expense of other jurisdictions. Hines is the most cited author on the research of tax havens, and his work on tax havens was relied upon by the CEA when drafting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Biography

James Hines was born in Chicago in 1958. He went to Yale University for his B.Sc and M.Sc in 1980. He completed his PhD in Harvard University in 1986. After various teaching and research posts in Princeton University and Harvard University, in 1997 he became Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. Hines is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research director of the International Tax Policy Forum.
Hines is the most cited author on research into tax havens, and has co-authored several papers in the, including the most cited paper. Hines has testified to Congress on public tax policy on a number of occasions, and is quoted on related issues by the financial media, such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Tax haven research

Hines-Rice paper

In February 1994, Hines and his Harvard PhD student, Eric M. Rice, published their 1990 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, on the use of tax havens by U.S. multinationals, which contained a number of important findings.
The 1994 Hines-Rice paper is recognised as the first important paper into BEPS and tax havens, and it is the most cited research paper in history on tax havens. The 1994 Hines-Rice paper has been cited by all subsequent most cited research papers into tax havens, including by Desai, Dharmapala, Slemrod, and Zucman.
The two most recent U.S. congressional investigations into tax havens: the 2008 investigation by the Government Accountability Office, and the 2015 investigation by the Congressional Research Service, identify the 1994 Hines-Rice paper as the first credible list of global tax havens, and the first quantitative analysis of what constitutes a tax haven.

Subsequent research

His subsequent 2007–2011 papers on tax havens showed that major tax havens, including Ireland, Singapore, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, were well governed and prosperous economies, from being tax havens: Tax havens are successful players in the world economy. He also asserted that tax havens could stimulate economic activity in nearby high-tax countries, by addressing issues in their tax systems, however this conclusion has been controversial and has drawn criticism from advocates of tax justice as being supportive of corporate tax avoidance by multinationals.
While Hines always avoided constructing overly specific or quantitative definitions of a tax haven, because of the variability in the types of economies that he had identified as tax havens, Hines does use a general definition that he employed during research with fellow tax-haven expert, Dhammaka Dharmapala, in 2009:
In November 2017, Hines was awarded the Daniel M. Holland Medal by the National Tax Association for his work, the second youngest winner in the medal's history.
In December 2017, his papers were cited by Harvard Professor Mihir A. Desai as ones that: changed the field and provided the roadmap for much of the next thirty years.

Multinational tax research

As well as his work on BEPS and on tax havens, Hines is known for research into how U.S. corporate taxation, and the marginal rate of U.S. corporation tax, drives the behaviours of U.S multinationals. Hines has been a strong advocate of moving the U.S. to a "territorial" tax model. In 2016, Hines, working with German academics, showed that German multinationals make little use of tax havens because the German corporate taxation system follows a "territorial" model. Hines cites the experience of Ireland, a feature on all of Hines' tax haven lists, who has rarely attracted firms from "territorial" taxation systems.
His research in this area was cited, although sometimes controversially so, by the Council of Economic Advisors in drafting the TCJA legislation in 2017; and advocating for reducing U.S. corporate taxes and moving to a hybrid "territorial" tax system framework, in order to drive U.S employment and wage growth.

Hines tax havens

Hines-Rice 1994 list

Because it is cited as the first coherent academic list of tax havens, the 41 jurisdictions from Appendix 2 in Hines-Rice are listed below, in the three sub-categories Hines-Rice used. The 7 major tax havens identified by Hines-Rice, who represent over 89% of tax haven GDP, are marked with a dagger.
Hines-Rice note that the U.S. IRS had identified 29 of their list as potential tax havens in 1987:
Hines-Rice note that Beauchamp had identified 7 of their list as potential tax havens in 1983:
Hines-Rice note that Doggart had identified 5 of their list as potential tax havens in 1983:
In a 2010 research paper, Hines produced a revised list of 52 tax havens, and also a method of quantifying and ranking the largest of them. Only two of the ten largest havens in Hines' 2010 list appeared in the OECD's 2000 list of tax havens. A major quantitative study in July 2017 study by the University of Amsterdam's CORPNET group, produced a list of havens that matched nine of the ten largest havens in Hines' list, but split into two types of haven: Conduit and Sinks. Another major quantitative study in June 2018 by Gabriel Zucman, produced a list whose ten largest havens also matched nine of Hines' top ten havens from 2010. Zucman calculated that Ireland had now become the largest of the ten major havens.
Ten largest havens, as specifically estimated by Hines, from the Hines 2010 list of 52 tax havens:
Identified as one of the largest 10 corporate tax havens on the Zucman-Tørsløv-Wier 2018 list in 2018.

Identified as one of the 5 Conduits, by CORPNET in 2017.

Identified as one of the largest 5 Sinks, by CORPNET in 2017.

Identified on the first, and the largest, OECD 2000 list of 35 tax havens.
The full list of 52 tax havens from the Hines 2010 list, are shown below :
Identified as one of the 5 Conduits by CORPNET in 2017; the above list has 4 of the 5.

Identified as one of the largest 24 Sinks by CORPNET in 2017; the above list has 21 of the 24.

Identified on the European Union's first 2017 list of 17 tax havens; the above list contains 8 of the 17.

Identified on the first, and the largest, OECD 2000 list of 35 tax havens ; the above list contains 34 of the 35.

Academic research

The following are the most cited papers on tax havens as ranked on the IDEAS/RePEc economic papers database, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, over the last 25 years.
As well as being the most cited individual author on tax havens, Hines has authored or co-authored five of the ten most referenced papers on tax havens.
RankPaperJournalVol-Issue-PageAuthorYear
1Fiscal Paradise: Foreign tax havens and American BusinessQuarterly Journal of Economics109 149-182James Hines, Eric Rice1994
2The demand for tax haven operationsJournal of Public Economics90 513-531Mihir A. Desai, C F Foley, James Hines2006
3Which countries become tax havens?Journal of Public Economics93 1058-1068Dhammika Dharmapala, James Hines2009
4The Missing Wealth of Nations: Are Europe and the U.S. net Debtors or net Creditors?Quarterly Journal of Economics128 1321-1364Gabriel Zucman2013
5Tax competition with parasitic tax havensJournal of Public Economics93 1261-1270Joel Slemrod, John D. Wilson2006
6What problems and opportunities are created by tax havens?Oxford Review of Economic Policy24 661-679Dhammika Dharmapala, James Hines2008
7In praise of tax havens: International tax planning and foreign direct investmentEuropean Economic Review54 82-95Qing Hong, Michael Smart2010
8End of bank secrecy: An Evaluation of the G20 tax haven crackdownAmerican Economic Journal6 65-91Niels Johannesen, Gabriel Zucman2014
9Taxing across borders: Tracking personal wealth and corporate profitsJournal of Economic Perspectives28 121-148Gabriel Zucman2014
10Treasure IslandsJournal of Economic Perspectives24 103-26James Hines2010