In this paper, I chose to use the Orbis database of Bureau van Dijk to con-struct data on ownership chains. Instead, one may use an alternative source of ownership data posted on the EDGAR system of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A multinational corporation listed in the stock mar-kets of the United States must file Form 10-K Exhibit 21, which shows the list of subsidiaries with their locations, via the EDGAR system.25 Interest-ingly, some of Exhibit 21 filings provide information on internal ownership structures, such as hierarchical parent-subsidiary relationships. Among the constituents of S&P 500 incorporated in the United States, I find 99 ultimate parents that have ever reported such information in Form 10-K Exhibit 21 since 2005 via the EDGAR system.26 This EDGAR dataset includes 4,948 cross-border ownership chains heading to 143 source countries. For compar-ison, the Orbis dataset contains 375 US ultimate parents and their 71,329 cross-border ownership chains to 182 source countries.
Tables B.1 to B.5 show the numbers of intermediate subsidiaries and ter-minal subsidiaries by countries of incorporation to compare the coverage of the two datasets. For example, the Orbis dataset covers 21,948 intermediate subsidiaries and 4,160 terminal subsidiaries incorporated in Japan, while the EDGAR dataset covers 52 intermediate subsidiaries and 124 terminal sub-sidiaries. Blanks in the tables show that a country appears only in one dataset but not in the other. Notably, Cote d’Ivoire, Monaco, Montenegro, Samoa, Libya, Seychelles, Uzbekistan, Albania, Eswatini, and Algeria, among oth-ers, appear only in the Orbis dataset. Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Dutch Sint Maarten, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, Guam, and Grenada appear only in the EDGAR dataset. This suggests that the cov-erage of a dataset plays an important role in the analysis of multinational ownership chains, as it does in the study of profit shifting magnitudes.27
25Ewert and Wagenhofer (2019) show that the quality of financial reports, such as Form 10-K, may depend on production risk, accounting system, and the scope of auditing.
26Accessed in October 2017 at sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html
27For studies on profit shifting, see Blouin and Robinson (2020) and Clausing (2020).
Table B.1. Coverage of Orbis and EDGAR datasets
Japan 21,948 4,160 52 124
United Kingdom 20,066 9,465 1,391 756
Netherlands 16,754 3,422 1,297 194
Luxembourg 9,563 1,098 657 80
France 5,474 2,905 137 123
Germany 3,833 3,499 334 201
Switzerland 3,515 1,887 361 73
Italy 3,187 1,957 37 84
Australia 2,969 1,934 168 187
Singapore 2,464 1,011 194 85
Canada 2,295 4,665 249 245
Ireland 2,118 1,840 86 103
India 2,070 1,772 13 119
Spain 1,620 1,440 127 96
Sweden 1,565 1,084 82 46
Hong Kong 1,390 980 170 86
Bermuda 1,330 609 126 69
Brazil 1,157 2,214 30 105
China 1,036 3,560 70 255
Belgium 807 926 29 63
South Africa 740 711 12 48
Denmark 724 580 83 31
Cayman Islands 701 771 161 185
Chile 679 582 9 53
Mexico 472 1,645 145 233
Norway 470 576 25 30
New Zealand 444 763 17 28
Austria 321 600 75 34
Russia 306 1,005 5 49
Mauritius 291 180 33 19
Israel 285 504 8 23
Cyprus 264 123 14 13
Malaysia 237 757 13 61
Finland 210 323 20 20
Portugal 188 595 3 25
Hungary 177 545 4 29
Malta 174 119 2 9
Poland 173 931 6 46
British Virgin 147 231 35 13
Gibraltar 131 59 1 4
... ... ... ... ...
Total 113,440 71,329 6,453 4,948
Table B.2. Coverage of Orbis and EDGAR datasets (continued)
Ukraine 112 249 0 9
Barbados 82 95 2 15
Greece 70 268 0 17
Czechia 60 518 5 36
Thailand 56 458 6 40
South Korea 47 503 6 71
Indonesia 47 297 5 31
Bahamas 44 88 9 27
Curacao 40 40 1 2
Romania 36 310 2 15
Arab Emirates 36 290 18 14
Slovakia 32 277 0 9
Turkey 30 470 1 31
Slovenia 30 77 0 3
Croatia 27 120 1 4
Uruguay 26 113 0 12
Taiwan 23 288 0 48
Argentina 22 429 3 63
Bulgaria 22 134 0 3
Estonia 21 71 0 4
Colombia 13 299 4 27
Lithuania 13 91 1 6
Liechtenstein 12 16 5 1
Saint Lucia 12 8 8 5
Serbia 11 100 3 7
Qatar 11 39 0 2
Morocco 10 123 1 9
Ecuador 9 94 1 7
Philippines 8 239 0 21
Nigeria 8 118 0 15
Vietnam 7 141 0 7
Iceland 7 32 1 2
Cote d’Ivoire 7 15
Ghana 6 36 4 5
Venezuela 5 197 6 31
... ... ... ... ...
Total 113,440 71,329 6,453 4,948
Table B.3. Coverage of Orbis and EDGAR datasets (continued)
Saudi Arabia 3 160 1 17
Costa Rica 3 138 0 14
Latvia 3 64 0 1
Kazakhstan 3 61 0 4
Montenegro 3 9
Trinidad Tobago 0 45 0 2
Algeria 0 44
Saint Kitts 0 35 0 2
Belarus 0 31
Bolivia 0 24 0 7
Bangladesh 0 24 0 3
Senegal 0 24
... ... ... ... ...
Total 113,440 71,329 6,453 4,948
Table B.4. Coverage of Orbis and EDGAR datasets (continued)
Mozambique 0 22 0 8
Tanzania 0 22
Azerbaijan 0 15 0 1
Zambia 0 15 0 1
Equatorial Guinea 0 9 0 1
Cambodia 0 9 0 1
Total 113,440 71,329 6,453 4,948
Table B.5. Coverage of Orbis and EDGAR datasets (continued)
Antigua Barbuda 0 2 0 1
Guinea-Bissau 0 2
Solomon Islands 0 1 0 1
Saint Vincent 0 1 0 1
Central African Rep. 0 1
Belize 0 1
Dutch Sint Maarten 3 0
Puerto Rico 0 15
US Virgin Islands 0 5
Turks and Caicos 0 4
Guam 0 2
Grenada 0 1
Total 113,440 71,329 6,453 4,948
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