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Taxes and Competition: Evidence from the Airline Industry
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DOI：10.1016/j.jacceco.2026.101873.png)
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Abstract
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This paper examines whether corporate tax cuts alter product-market competition by differentially affecting firms with high versus low tax burdens. Tax cuts increase after-tax cash flows for profitable firms but provide little immediate benefit to loss-making firms. We study the 1986 Tax Reform Act, which reduced the top corporate tax rate by 12 percentage points and examine route-level price and quantity data from the U.S. airline industry. We find that, in response to the Act, profitable airlines reduce ticket prices by 4.2% relative to their loss-making rivals and gain 3.3 percentage points in market share. These effects are concentrated in routes where loss-making competitors are financially constrained and are accompanied by increased entry by profitable airlines and exit by loss-making airlines. The evidence suggests that taxes can affect competitive outcomes, specifically in our paper by enabling high-tax firms to compete more aggressively with low-tax rivals after tax cuts.
Keywords:
Corporate tax cuts
Product-market competition
Airline industry
Tax burden
Market share
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