| dc.description.abstract | The valuation basis for the wealth tax generally differs between listed and non-listed
companies, where listed companies are valued at market value and non-listed companies are
valued at book value. We analyze the 2007 wealth tax abolishment in Sweden. We find that
the wealth tax abolishment in Sweden led to a persistent increase in the number of listed
companies. Through the synthetic control method, we estimate a final increase in 2012 of
62% more listed companies compared to a scenario where Sweden kept its wealth tax. This
increase corresponds to 13 more listed companies per million capita. Furthermore, through a
fixed effects regression we also find the relationship between the wealth tax abolishment and
the number listed companies in Sweden significant at the 1% level. Our findings from
analyzing Sweden suggest that a wealth tax can discourage companies from going public.
Nevertheless, the generalizability of our result is uncertain. | en_US |
