CAN INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS INFLUENCE CORPORATE TAX ACTIVISM? FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HETEROGENEOUS INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS

Institutional investors, as external shareholders with a high proportion of shares, have always been a hot topic. To explore the influence of heterogeneous institutional investors on corporate tax activism, using the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, multiple regression, quantile regression, PSM model, and Heckman two-stage test, the influence of different types of institutional investors shareholdings on corporate tax activism was analysed. Results show that the business cooperation between the pressure-sensitive institutional investors and the invested companies is limited to the former's effective external supervision role and that the pressure-resistant institutional investors relative to the independent interests of the invested companies can significantly restrain a corporate tax activism behaviour and reduce their corporate tax activism degree. Pressure-resistant institutional investors play a leading role in curbing corporate tax activism and have the potential to influence other investors. In enterprises with low equity concentration and high equity checks and balances, pressure-resistant institutional investors can exert a strong external governance effect and restrain the tax activism behaviour of enterprises. The conclusions provide a novelty explanation for the factors that influence corporate tax activism. Only the pressure of institutional investors who focus on the long-term value of enterprises and have no business connections with investment enterprises can play a shareholder supervision role to influence corporate tax activism behaviour.