This page gathers resources for those working on (or simply interested in) corporate tax avoidance and profit shifting. It includes over 160 databases, along with some material on data analysis and visualization.
Databases in black are freely available, or “almost” freely available. Those in orange are more difficult to have access to, due to high prices, restrictions, etc.
DATA
Activity of Multinational Enterprises Database (OECD)
Alphacast
Amadeus (Bureau Van Dijk)
American Stories dataset (Dell)
Analytical Database on Individual Multinationals and Affiliates (OECD)
Atlas of Economic Complexity (Harvard Growth Lab)
Atlas of Offshore Wealth (EU Tax Observatory)
Audit reports (US Federal Audit Clearinghouse)
Balanced Trade in Services Dataset (OECD and WTO)
BEPS MLI Matching Database (OECD)
Bilateral Financial Secrecy Index (Tax Justice Network)
Bilateral profit shifting flows/Missing profits (Tørsløv, Wier, and Zucman)
Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (EBRD)
Business Formation Statistics (US Census Bureau)
CbCR Company Database Explorer (EU Tax Observatory)
CbCR Explorer (EU Tax Observatory)
CBT Tax Database (Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)
Center for International Data (UC Davis)
ComExt Intra- & Extra-European trade database (Eurostat)
Comparative Political Data Set (Armingeon, Engler, and Leemann)
Competitiveness Database (CompNet)
Compustat North America/Global (S&P Global Market Intelligence)
Comtrade Database (UN)
CongressData (Grossman, Lucas, McCrain, and Ostrander)
Congress.gov API
Consolidated and locational banking statistics (BIS)
Content of Deep Trade Agreements Database (World Bank)
Controlled Foreign Company Rules Database (OECD)
Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (IMF)
Corporate Tax Haven Index (Tax Justice Network)
Corporate tax rates (European Commission)
Corporate tax rates (KPMG)
Corporate tax rates (OECD)
Corporate tax rates (Tax Foundation)
Corporate Tax Tracker (Transparency International EU)
Corpwatch API
Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International)
Country-by-Country Report Statistics Explorer (EU Tax Observatory)
Country-by-Country Reporting data (OECD)
Country codes (World Data)
County Business Patterns Database (Eckert, Fort, Schott, and Yang)
Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (Bonica)
DB Nomics (CEPREMAP)
Design of Trade Agreements Database (Dür, Baccini, and Elsig)
Dispute Settlement and Case Law Project (WTO)
Diverse French data (French Government)
Domestic and International Common Language Database (Gurevich, Herman, Toubal, and Yotov)
Déclarations Annuelles de Données Sociales (INSEE)
Economics & Business Data Center (LMU Munich and ifo Institute)
Economics Observatory Data Hub
Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (SEC)
Electronic Database of Investment Treaties (World Trade Institute)
Economic Integration Agreements (Bergstrand and Baier)
Enquête FARE/FICUS (INSEE)
Enquête LIaisons FInancières entre sociétés (INSEE)
Eora Global Supply Chain Database (KGM & Associates)
Equilar
Eurobarometer (European Union)
ExecuComp (S&P Global Market Intelligence)
Executive compensation 1936-2005 (Frydman and Saks)
Exporter Dynamics Database (World Bank)
European Union Labor Force Survey (Eurostat)
Financial Secrecy Index Database (Tax Justice Network)
FinFlows Dataset (ECFIN - JRC)
Fiscal Decentralisation Database (OECD)
Foreign Affiliates Statistics (Eurostat)
Foreign Direct Investments of Korean Firms (Korean Exporting Import Bank)
Form 5500 Datasets (Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Gabors Data Analysis repository (Békés and Kézdi)
GEODIST (CEPII)
GlobalData
Global Capital Allocation Project (Maggiori, Neiman, Schreger)
Global Offshore Wealth (EU Tax Observatory)
Global Preferential Trade Agreements Database (WITS)
Global Repository of Income Dynamics (Guvenen, Pistaferri, and Violante)
Global Revenue Statistics Database (OECD)
Global Sanctions Database (Felbermayr, Khirilakha, Syropoulos, Yalcin, and Yotov)
Global Tax Expenditures Database (Tax Expenditures Lab)
Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (Tax Expenditures Lab)
Global Trade Alert Database
Global Trade Analysis Project databases (GTAP)
Global Value Chain Database (UNCTAD-Eora)
Government Revenue Dataset (UNU-WIDER)
Historical Financial Research Data (Yale)
Income Distributions and Dynamics in America (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis)
Income Inequality Database (Ranaldi and Milanovic)
Informal Sector Enterprise Surveys (World Bank)
Intellectual Property Statistics (WIPO)
International Capital Flows database by sector (Avdjiev, Hardy, Kalemli-Ozcan, and Servén)
International Labor Force database (IPUMS)
International Tax Competitiveness Index (Tax Foundation)
International Trade and Production Database for Estimation (Borchert, Larch, Shikher, and Yotov)
International Trade Data (Schott)
Investment Map (ITC)
Labor Force Statistics (CPS, US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Labour Force Surveys (ILO)
Long-term Productivity Database (Bergeaud, Cette, Lecat)
Macrohistory Database (Jordà, Schularick, and Taylor)
Manufacturing Industry Database (NBER-CES)
Market Potentials (CEPII)
Markup data (De Loecker)
MergerCite (Málek)
MiDi Mikrodatenbank Direktinvestitionen (Bundesbank)
Multilateral Price Levels and Currency Misalignments (CEPII)
Multinational Production Data (Ramondo, Rodriguez-Clare, and Tintelnot)
Multinational Production Data (Alviarez)
M&A database (Refinitiv/Thomson Reuters)
National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA)
Offshore Leaks Database (ICIJ)
Old World Trade Routes Project (Ciolek)
Open Data for Tax Justice (Tax Justice Network)
Orbis (Bureau Van Dijk)
Our World in Data
Pandemic-Era Trade Policies in Food and Medical Products (Global Trade Alert)
Phantom and Real FDI (Damgaard, Elkjaer, and Johannesen)
Political Parties, Presidents, Elections, and Governments Database (WZB Berlin Social Science Center)
Product Level Trade Estimated Elasticities (CEPII)
Quadros de Pessoal (Instituto Nacional de Estatística)
Quality of Government data (University of Gothenburg)
Realtime Inequality (Blanchet, Saez, and Zucman)
Regional Trade Agreements Database (Larch)
Related Party Database (US Census Bureau)
RICardo Project on trade between nations from 1800 to 1938 (Dedinger and Girard, Sciences Po)
R&D tax incentives (Bösenberg and Egger)
Services Trade Restrictiveness Index Regulatory Database (OECD)
Social Data Science Hub (University of Edinburgh)
Socio-economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEDLAS)
Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (DIW Berlin)
SOUTHMOD Simulating tax and benefit policies for development (UNU-WIDER)
Standardized World Income Inequality Database (Solt)
Stanford Big-Data Initiative in International Macro-Finance
Structural Gravity Database (WTO)
Tariff Bindings Database (WTO)
Tariff of the European Union TARIC Database (European Commission)
Tax Deficit Simulator (EU Tax Observatory)
Tax Introduction Database (Seelkopf, Bubek, Eihmanis, Ganderson, Limberg, Mnaili, Zuluaga, and Genschel)
Tax Map of Digital Financial Services (ICTD)
Tax rates (Vegh and Vuletin)
Tax Treaties Explorer (International Centre for Tax and Development)
Temporary Trade Barriers Database (World Bank)
Trade Cost Database (UNESCAP - World Bank)
Trade in Value Added Database (OECD)
Trade Map (ITC)
Trade maps (WTO)
Trade Related Illicit Financial Flows (Global Finance Integrity)
TRAINS Database (UNCTAD)
Transfer pricing rules and practices in Latin American and Caribbean countries [CIAT] (Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations)
UNCTADstat
Understanding Economics (Stantcheva)
Union Membership and Coverage Database (Hirsch and Macpherson)
UN Tax Convention Policy Tracker (Tax Justice Network)
US Direct Investment Abroad Database (BEA)
US MNEs Country-by-Country Reports (IRS)
US International Trade Data (US Census Bureau)
V-Party Dataset (V-Dem Institute)
WageIndicator (Global Labor Organization)
WIID Explorer (UNU-WIDER)
World Bank Enterprise Surveys (World Bank)
World Income Inequality Database (UNU-WIDER)
World Inequality Database (World Inequality Lab)
World Input-Output Database (European Commission)
World Management Survey (CEP)
World Scope (Refinitiv)
World Tax Database (Michigan University)
World Tax Indicators (Georgia State University)
World Values Surveys
Zephyr M&A Database (Bureau Van Dijk)
ANALYSIS & VISUALIZATION
An Economist’s Guide to Visualizing Data (Schwabish)
Coding for Economists (Turrell)
Data Visualization: A practical introduction (Healy)
DIME Wiki
Flourish Studio
From Data to Viz (Healy and Holtz)
Fundamentals of Data Visualization (Wilke)
GGPLOT2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Wickham)
Intro to Data Visualization (Turrell)
Introduction to Geographic Data Science (Rowe)
Plotly Graphing Libraries
R for Data Science (Wickham and Grolemund)
Stata bimap package (Asjad Naqvi)
Stata Coding Guide (Julian Reif)
Stata Cheat Sheets (Stata)
Stata Dataviz packages (Asjad Naqvi)
Stata to LaTex guide (Asjad Naqvi)
Story Telling With Data blog
Text Data in Economics (Ash)
Top R packages for downloading political science and economics datasets (R statistics for Political Science)
ECONOMETRICS
Applied Empirical Method (Goldsmith-Pinkham)
Bayes rules! (Dogucu, Johson, and Ott)
Bunching Estimation Methods (Bertanha, Caetano, Jales, and Seegert)
Causal Inference (Cunningham)
Causal Inference with Applications (Blackwell)
Causal Machine Learning (C. Knaus)
Data Analysis for Business, Economics, and Policy (Békés and Kézdi)
Data Colada
DiD Resources (Roth)
Difference-in-differences dropbox (Woolridge)
Econometrics for Finance (Söderlind)
Instrumental Variables: An Econometrician’s Perspective (Imbens)
Introduction to Econometrics with R (Hanck, Arnold, Gerber, and Schmelzer)
Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach (Woolridge)
Introductory Econometrics for Finance (Brooks)
Literature on Recent Advances in Applied Micro Methods (Cai)
Mostly Harmless Econometrics (Angrist and Pischke)
Network Data (Graham)
The DiD reading group (Wright)
The DiD repository (Naqvi)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Markup Estimation (De Ridder, Grassi, and Morzenti)
Time Series Analysis (Kotzé)
Two-Way Fixed Effects and DiD Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Imperfect Parallel Trends (De Chaisemartin and D’Haultfœuille)
Weak Identification with Many Instruments (Mikusheva and Sun)
What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature (Roth, Sant'Anna, Bilinski, Poe)
TIPS FOR PHD STUDENTS
Being a researcher requires plenty of skills. Although some are essentially technical, many are not. The latter include (but are not limited to) writing, presentation, organization, and communication skills.
Claes Bäckman has compiled a list of resources on these practical skills here.