Second International MaTax Annual Conference at ZEW

The main issue addressed by the Leibniz ScienceCampus "Mannheim Taxation" (MaTax) is the design of a sustainable tax system which can adapt to and meet future economic and societal challenges on the national, European, and global level. Together with ZEW and the University of Mannheim, MaTax organised the second international annual MaTax conference on taxation research, which took place on October 1 and 2, 2015. Professor Mihir Desai from Harvard Business School gave participants food for thought with his keynote lecture entitled "The Past, Present and Future of International Tax. Who's Competing and What for?"

Drawing on a number of informative examples, Professor Desai explained why public interest in competitiveness has increased and how foreign direct investment, as well as current developments in tax policy, are perceived by the public. Harvard professor Desai went on to describe how firms and states interact, and explained the role played by shareholder structures, the labour market, transfer of knowledge, management culture, productivity and politics. He concluded that national interests of governments often coincide with the ability of firms to perform globally.

Addressing the broad range of taxation research

Several of the points addressed by Desai in his keynote speech were also featured in the conference programme. In ten parallel sessions, around 70 participants discussed the latest results from empirical and theoretical taxation research. The research papers covered the areas of corporate taxation, as well as personal taxation and tax law. Amongst other topics, speakers considered the factors which might potentially influence tax planning and tax avoidance, the tax sensitivity of investment decisions, tax evasion activities, the impact of taxation on a local level, questions of distribution, the relationship between jurisdiction and the impact of taxation, as well as the incidence and impact of decisions regarding personal taxation.

MaTax internationally recognised following initiation in 2014

In total, the second MaTax annual MaTax conference offered 32 presentations given by researchers who had been selected in advance by the organisation committee, following numerous submissions from Germany and abroad. The diversity of the programme, featuring renowned speakers, indicates the excellent reputation MaTax enjoys in the research community in the second year after its kick-off.

In his introductory speech, ZEW President Professor Clemens Fuest praised the successful establishment of the ScienceCampus. He emphasized the research productivity of MaTax researchers and provided several examples of MaTax activities conducted in the past year, such as scientific conferences, a tax policy event held in Brussels as part of the ZEW Lunch Debates series, and the training of up-and-coming researchers in the taxation track at the Mannheim Graduate School. There are also numerous events planned for the coming year, many of which will draw on international cooperation. At the end of the conference, Professor Spengel from the University of Mannheim wished the participants farewell and thanked the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for their financial support of the conference.