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IZA Discussion Paper No. 7646
September 2013
Tax Me If You Can! Optimal Nonlinear Income Tax between Competing Governments

published in: Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2014, 129 (4), 1995-2030

We investigate how potential tax-driven migrations modify the Mirrlees income tax schedule when two countries play Nash. The social objective is the maximin and preferences are quasilinear in income. Individuals differ both in skills and migration costs, which are continuously distributed. We derive the optimal marginal income tax rates at the equilibrium, extending the Diamond-Saez formula. The theory and numerical simulations on the US case show that the level and the slope of the semi-elasticity of migration on which we lack empirical evidence are crucial to derive the shape of optimal marginal income tax. Our simulations show that potential migrations result in a welfare drop between 0.4% and 5.3% for the worst-off and an average gain between 18.9% and 29.3% for the top 1%.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
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Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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