Measuring the Impact of Financial Taxation on Capital

Using panel data from Chilean manufacturing plants, we present an empirical model to measure the impact of a financial transaction tax on capital stock. Our results show a statistically significant negative effect of the tax on the stock of capital. We also find that the impact on plants is heterogeneous, depending on the intensity of different types of capital held by plants. Indeed, plants with a higher percentage of infrastructure assets, such as land and buildings, are affected relatively less by the tax.