COVID-19 and corporate tax avoidance: International evidence.

Governments across the globe initiated various tax reforms in the post- Global Financial Crisis period to rein in aggressive corporate tax avoidance for managing budget deficits. These developments created new realities in the international business environment by altering the costs and benefits of corporate tax management. Yet, we have a limited understanding of the effectiveness of tax reforms in controlling corporate tax avoidance at the global level.

Real effects of social trust on firm performance during COVID-19.

This study uses a difference-in-differences estimation method to address potential endogeneity between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance using a natural experiment of COVID-19, with a cross-country sample of 80,454 firm-quarter observations across 51 countries. We find that high-CSR firms show better performance, raise more debt, and invest more during COVID-19. The positive effect of CSR on firm performance is more pronounced in countries with better governance and among non- International Financial Reporting Standards adopters.