Abstract: This paper studies the impact of value-added tax (VAT) rate consolidation on corporate resource allocation efficiency using data from Chinese A-share listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges between 2014 and 2020. Leveraging the 2017 VAT rate simplification reform, which consolidated multiple tax brackets into a streamlined structure, as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a difference-in-differences (DID) design to identify causal effects. Empirical results demonstrate that VAT rate simplification leads to a statistically significant reduction in resource misallocation distortions, a finding robust to a battery of sensitivity checks, including placebo tests and alternative model specifications. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that the efficiency-enhancing effects are concentrated in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), with no significant impact on state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Furthermore, the distortion-mitigating effects are more pronounced among firms in upstream industries of the value chain and those with larger operational scales. Mechanism tests indicate that VAT rate consolidation improves resource allocation efficiency through lowering the effective VAT rate and fostering productive specialization. Extension of the analysis highlights asymmetric spillover effects across value chains: upstream VAT reforms significantly reduce resource misallocation in downstream industries, whereas downstream reforms exhibit no comparable influence on upstream sectors. This finding underscores the pivotal role of upstream tax policy design in optimizing inter-industry resource allocation.

Key words: value-added tax, tax rate brackets, resource allocation distortion, production networks