We examine how allowing individuals to emigrate to pay lower taxes abroad changes the optimal non-linear income tax scheme in a Mirrleesian economy. An individual emigrates if his domestic utility is less than his utility abroad net of migration costs, utilities and costs both depending on productivity. Three average social criteria are distinguished – national, citizen and resident – according to the agents whose welfare matters. A curse of the middle-skilled occurs in the first-best and it may be optimal to let some highly skilled leave the country under the resident criterion. In the second-best, we provide an extension of Saez’s formula for the optimal marginal tax rates. The middle-skilled can support the highest average tax rates and the marginal tax rates can be negative. Preventing emigration of the highly skilled is not necessarily optimal under the citizen and resident criteria.
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Length: 26 pages Date of creation: 12 Oct 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2009_009
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
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