Taxes as a Determinant of Foreign-Owned Property-Liability Insurers' Investment Strategies in the United States.

Abstract This research Investigates the influence of home-country tax systems on foreign- owned property-liability insurance company investment strategies in the United States. Specifically, we compare the Investment strategies of foreign Insurers subject to home-country territorial and worldwide tax regimes. We predict that U.S. subsidiaries and branches of foreign Insurers domiciled in territorial tax countries will hold more U.S. tax-favored assets than their counterparts subject to a worldwide tax regime. We also predict that U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned insurers domiciled in worldwide tax counties will hold more U.S. tax-favored assets than branches of such companies. Consistent with our prediction, we find that worldwide branches Invest a significantly smaller proportion of their assets in U.S. tax-exempt bonds than do territorial Insurers (both branches and subsidiaries). However, we find no statistically significant difference in the investment practices of worldwide subsidiaries and territorial subsidiaries. These results indicate that tax deferral available to worldwide subsidiaries may be the equivalent of tax exemption for investments in U.S. tax-exempt bonds. The results contribute to a stream of research that investigates how alternative tax regimes affect direct foreign investment In the United States (e.g., Collins et S. 1995; Hines 1996, 1997; Scholes and Wolfson 1990).