Marko Köthenbürger: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2022

Name Prof. Dr. Marko Köthenbürger
FieldPublic Economics
Address
Professur f. Öffentliche Finanzen
ETH Zürich, LEE G 110
Leonhardstrasse 21
8092 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Telephone+41 44 632 54 46
E-mailkoethenbuerger@ethz.ch
URLhttp://www.pec.ethz.ch
DepartmentManagement, Technology, and Economics
RelationshipFull Professor

NumberTitleECTSHoursLecturers
351-0511-00LManagerial Economics
Not for MSc students belonging to D-MTEC!
4 credits3VO. Krebs, P. Egger, M. Köthenbürger
Abstract"Managerial Economics" provides an introduction to the theories and methods from Economics and Management Science to analyze economic decision-making in the context of markets. The course targets students with no prior knowledge in Economics and Management.
ObjectiveThe objective of this course is to provide an introduction to microeconomic thinking. Based on the fundamental principles of economic analysis (optimization and equilibrium), the focus lies on understanding key economic concepts relevant for understanding and analyzing economic behavior of firms and consumers in the context of markets. Market demand and supply are derived from the individual decision-making of economic agents and market outcomes under different assumptions about the market structure and market power (perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly, game theory) are studied. This introductory course aims at providing essential knowledge from the fields of Economics and Management relevant for economic decision-making in the context of both the private and public sector.
LiteratureMicroeconomics by Robert Pindyck & Daniel Rubinfeld, 9th edition 2018, The Pearson series in economics.
Prerequisites / NoticeThe course targets both Bachelor and Master students. No prior knowledge in the areas of Economics and Management is required.
363-1037-00LFiscal Competition and Multinational Firms3 credits2VM. Köthenbürger, M. Stimmelmayr
AbstractThe course enables students to understand how multinational firms respond to differential tax regimes in a global economy and how countries strategically use the tax system to host multinationals. In particular, the course covers transfer pricing issues, internal financing decisions and agency problems and their relation to tax policy.
Objective- Understanding how taxes influence decisions of multinational firms

- Develop thinking about the strategic use of differential tax systems for multinational firms

- Evaluate options for governments to respond to the tax planning behavior of multinational firms

- Using theoretical models and empirical analysis to uncover regularities in how multinational firms respond to taxes
ContentMultinational firms have grown in importance in recent decades. Given that their affiliates are located in different countries, they face various tax systems. This creates complexity with respect to the operation of a multinational firm, but also offers the option to benefit from differences across various tax provisions. Starting from this observation, the course looks at how multinational firms respond to the differences in tax provisions and how governments will respond to this behavior in its choice of tax systems. Different channels how multinational firms allocate taxable profits across countries will be analyzed: transfer pricing policies, internal financing decisions and investments. A particular emphasis will be put on how agency problems within multinational firms interact with tax avoidance behavior and how they are related to tax policy.
The course has two parts: The first part of the lecture contains a detailed treatment of the different channels multinational firms can use to strategically allocate profits to low-tax countries and how the tax avoidance decision might interfere with other decisions of the multinational firm. Building on this insight, we will discuss whether governments might strategically choose to adjust its tax provisions either to benefit from the multinational firm tax-saving behavior or to protect its tax base against the tax-planning behavior. In the second part of the course, we will discuss different papers that empirically analyze the validity of the different channels we have discussed in the first part. Students select one paper out of a list of papers (to be distributed in the course) and give a short presentation of the paper (max. 30 minutes). Afterwards, we will enter a discussion of the presented paper and clarify unaddressed issues.