Institutional investors' corporate site visits and tax avoidance

This study examines the association between institutional investors' corporate site visits (CSVs) and the visited firms' tax avoidance. This paper uses unique corporate site visit data from China to evidence that institutional investors' CSVs reduce the visited firms' tax avoidance. The primary economic channel is that dedicated institutional investors have a higher probability of visiting the corporate sites, and their long-term investment horizons discourage corporate tax avoidance. Another channel stems from the CSVs' influence on the visited firms' information environment and its monitoring mechanism for managers.