Abstract Tax avoidance and diversification are the strategic choices of enterprises. Based on the data of non-financial listed companies from 2003 to 2018, this paper examines the impact of tax avoidance on the diversification strategy of enterprises,and makes an expansion analysis in many aspects. The are following findings: (1) Tax avoidance can significantly inhibit the diversification of enterprises, and this conclusion is still valid after endogenous test and robustness test; (2) The inhibition of tax avoidance on the diversification of enterprises lasts for a long time; (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the inhibition effect is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises, small enterprises, enterprises with low information transparency and poor corporate governance; (4) Further research shows that tax avoidance is not conducive to the diversification of enterprises by increasing the financing constraints of enterprises. Specifically, tax avoidance increases the bank loan interest rate and cost of enterprises, and mainly increases the bank short-term loan interest rate compared with the long-term loan interest rate. The research results of this paper expand the research scope of the economic consequences of enterprise tax avoidance, and also have a certain practical significance for the choice of enterprise diversification strategies.
2023, Vol. 40 
