We examine whether mandatory tax information exchange agreements between governments have real effects on firms’ physical trade in tangible goods. We posit that some of the physical trade in tangible goods flowing through low-tax jurisdictions is intended to facilitate income shifting. As such, shocks to enforcement via mandatory information exchange agreements could cause firms to change the physical flow of goods. Using firm-level shipping container data, we find that adoption of bilateral tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) between the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions is associated with significant decreases in the volume of imports by U.S. firms from those jurisdictions. We also find reallocation effects: U.S. firms increase imports from jurisdictions in the same subregion as the treated jurisdiction, resulting in minimal overall change in total imports. To our knowledge, ours is the first study to document a connection among enforcement-related tax disclosure, income shifting, and physical trade flows.
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- PhD in Accounting, University of Waterloo, Canada
- MSc in Statistics, University of Toronto, Canada
- MA in Economics, University of Toronto, Canada
- BA (First Class Honors), University of Alberta, Canada
Travis Chow is an Associate Professor of Accounting at HKU Business School. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong in 2020, he was a faculty member at Singapore Management University. His research examines how taxation influences corporate and individual decision-making. His current research focuses on how international tax provisions, tax information reporting, and enforcement institutions affect multinational firms’ financial and operational decisions.
His work has been published in leading journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research, Management Science, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Taxation Association.
Professor Chow holds a PhD in Accounting from the University of Waterloo, an MSc in Statistics and an MA in Economics from the University of Toronto, and a BA (First Class Honours) from the University of Alberta.
Professor Chow teaches managerial accounting, ESG reporting, and international taxation and transfer pricing at the graduate level. He has also taught undergraduate courses in taxation, financial accounting, and management control, as well as a doctoral seminar in empirical tax research.
- Taxes and corporate decision-making.
- Travis Chow, Edward Maydew, and Guoman She (2026), “Mandatory Information Exchange, Cross-Border Income Shifting, and the Physical Flow of Tangible Goods.” The Accounting Review, Forthcoming.
- Travis Chow, Jeffrey Pittman, Muzhi Wang, Zitian Wang, and Le Zhao (2026), “Do Financial Statement Auditors Respond to Shifts in Corporate Tax Enforcement? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design and Field Research.” Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Forthcoming.
- Travis Chow, Allen Huang, Kai Wai Hui, and Terry Shevlin (2026), “Judge Ideology and Corporate Tax Planning.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Forthcoming.
- Travis Chow, Zhongwen Fan, Li Huang, Oliver Zhen Li, Siman Li (2023), “Reciprocity in Corporate Tax Compliance — Evidence from Ozone Pollution.” Journal of Accounting Research, 61 (5): 1425–1477, Lead Article.
- Travis Chow, Jeffrey Hoopes, and Edward Maydew (2023), “Profit Shifting During Foreign Tax Holidays.” The Accounting Review, 98 (4): 115–142.
- Jiang Cheng, Travis Chow, Tzu-Ting Lin, and Jeffrey Ng (2022), “The Effect of Accounting for Income Tax Uncertainty on Tax‐Deductible Loss Accruals for Private Insurers.” Journal of Risk and Insurance, 89 (2), 505–544.
- Travis Chow, Sterling Huang, Kenneth J. Klassen, and Jeffrey Ng (2022), “The Influence of Corporate Income Taxes on Investment Location: Evidence from Corporate Headquarters Relocations.” Management Science, 68 (2), 1404–1425.
- Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Travis Chow, and Yanju Liu (2021), “Corporate In‐house Tax Departments.” Contemporary Accounting Research, 38 (1), 443–482.
- Travis Chow, Ken Klassen, and Yanju Liu (2016), “Targets’ Tax Shelter Participation and Takeover Premiums.” Contemporary Accounting Research, 33 (4), 1440–1472. Presented at 29th CAR Conference.
- Principal Investigator, Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (17504224), 2024–2026.
- Principal Investigator, Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (17506123), 2023–2025.
- Co-Investigator, Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (12501322), 2022–2024.
- FARS Excellence in Reviewing Award 2016 (Inaugural), American Accounting Association.
- Principal Investigator, Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Research Grant, 2016–2018.
- Principal Investigator, Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Research Grant, 2015–2017.
- AAA/Deloitte/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium Fellow, Lake Tahoe, 2012.
- Editorial Board, Journal of the American Taxation Association
- Discussants for MIT Asia Conference, ATA Midyear Meeting, Oxford Tax Academic Symposium, Mannheim Taxation Conference, CEIBS Accounting and Finance Symposium, EIASM Conference on Research in Taxation, SMU Summer Camp, SMU Accounting Symposium, LBS Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, etc.
- Ad hoc reviewer for academic journals: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, British Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, European Accounting Review, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, International Tax and Public Finance, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Journal of the American Taxation Association, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of International Accounting Research, Journal of International Business Studies, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Review of Accounting Studies The Accounting Review.
In a tax—public goods reciprocity framework between citizens and the state, managers view taxes as a payment to the government in exchange for public goods, and hence they adjust their willingness to pay taxes as public good quality changes. We show that corporate tax planning intensity increases with ground-level ozone pollution. Revisions in ozone pollution regulations cause counties that failed the revised and more stringent standards to reduce ozone pollution. Consequently, firms headquartered in these counties reduced corporate tax planning intensity relative to firms in other counties. The ozone-tax link varies in the predicted directions with public attention to pollution, potential welfare loss due to ozone, managers’ stakeholder orientation, taxpayers’ polluting status, political preferences, and civic norms. We also find consistent results for Superfund cleanups of hazardous waste sites. Our research sheds light on reciprocity as a potential mechanism influencing corporate tax compliance.
We undertake the first empirical analysis of profit shifting by U.S. firms during foreign tax holidays. We show that foreign tax holidays have become a prevalent and powerful tax planning strategy among U.S. firms. We find that U.S. firms significantly increase their outbound profit shifting while participating in foreign tax holidays. However, we also find that profit shifting associated with tax holidays comes at the cost of increased tax uncertainty. Our results have important implications for policy making and for understanding firm behavior.
研究审视了司法管辖区中的企业所得税和其他政策对企业作出总部选址决策的影响。透过研究美国州份中的企业所得税随时间和不同州份之间所产生的变化，我们发现当企业总部所在州份的企业所得税税率每提高一个百分点，企业把总部迁出该州的可能性会增加16.8%；反之，当企业总部所在州份的企业所得税税率每降低一个百分点，企业把总部搬迁的可能性则会降低 9.1%。我们的研究利用美国分摊制度中独特的税收政策特征，有力地证明税收加强上述的影响。我们的研究亦显示，各州份所得税的特点会影响企业总部的最终选址。透过展示州份所得税政策如果影响企业决策，以及其对企业及国家所带来的重大经济后果，我们希望此研究能为企业决策方面作出贡献。
在加拿大和新加坡两地累聚多年研究和教学经验，周家聪博士相信自己是时候回到香港这个成长地贡献。他于2020年七月加入港大经管学院，成为会计学助理教授。