Market Liberalization and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Program in China

This study employs two market liberalization programs in China, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SHSC) program and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SZHSC) program, as an exogenous shock to stock market liberalization to explore the impact of market liberalization on tax avoidance. By employing the staggered difference-in-difference regression on Chinese listed firms, we found that market liberalization reduces tax avoidance by approximately 13.1%. This result is robust under parallel trend examination, falsification test, alternative regression methodology, and different measurements for tax avoidance. Additionally, this effect is greater for non-state-owned firms and for firms that have less external monitoring, higher information asymmetry, and stronger financial constraints.