Tax-induced mobility: Evidence from a foreigners' tax scheme in Switzerland

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Schmidheiny, Kurt; Slotwinski, Michaela
• 署名单位: University of Basel
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.04.002
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 293-324
• 关键词: Tax-induced mobility; Income taxes; regression discontinuity design

摘要

We study location choice and residential mobility responses to local income taxes exploiting a special tax regime which applies to foreign employees residing in Switzerland. The institutional setting used generates a deterministic duration threshold at 5 years of stay in the country, at which the local tax rates an individual faces simultaneously change in all municipalities. We exploit this exogenous variation by applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to merged survey and administrative individual-level data. A dynamic location choice model allows us to derive testable hypotheses of individuals' location choices and mobility decisions. Our estimated treatment effects provide causal evidence for tax-induced residential choices and tax induced intra-national mobility. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.