IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v8y2008i1n35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Fiscal Policy When Migration Is Feasible

Author

Listed:
  • Occhino Filippo

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

Abstract

This paper investigates how the feasibility of migration affects governments' optimal fiscal policies. We assume that households migrate toward economies where their welfare is higher, governments choose taxes and public expenditures to maximize a weighted sum of the households' welfare, welfare is increasing in public expenditures, and only distortionary labor income taxes are available. In isolated economies, the optimal fiscal policy implies that some households are net fiscal contributors, while other households are net fiscal beneficiaries. When households can migrate, however, governments compete for the households which are net fiscal contributors, and modify the fiscal policy in their favor, lowering their taxes and net fiscal contribution, and increasing their welfare. The magnitude of the effect increases with the sensitivity of migration to welfare. In the limiting case of free mobility, all households are zero net fiscal contributors. As to the patterns of migration, the model predicts that, with high migration costs, all households migrate toward the same high-productivity countries, which benefits low-productivity households, whereas with low migration costs, households with different productivities migrate toward different countries, which benefits high-productivity households.

Suggested Citation

  • Occhino Filippo, 2008. "Optimal Fiscal Policy When Migration Is Feasible," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:8:y:2008:i:1:n:35
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.1803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.1803
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1935-1682.1803?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Razin,Assaf & Sadka,Efraim, 2001. "Labor, Capital, and Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521785570.
    2. Kjetil Storesletten, 2000. "Sustaining Fiscal Policy through Immigration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 300-323, April.
    3. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    4. Razin, Assaf & Sadka, Efraim & Swagel, Phillip, 2002. "Tax burden and migration: a political economy theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 167-190, August.
    5. Honkapohja, Seppo & Turunen-Red, Arja H., 2004. "Gains and losses from tax competition with migration," Working Papers 2004-01, University of New Orleans, Department of Economics and Finance.
    6. David E. Wildasin, 2006. "Global Competition for Mobile Resources: Implications for Equity, Efficiency and Political Economy," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 52(1), pages 61-110, March.
    7. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 269-304, June.
    8. Myers, Gordon M., 1990. "Optimality, free mobility, and the regional authority in a federation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 107-121, October.
    9. Wildasin, David E, 1991. "Income Redistribution in a Common Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 757-774, September.
    10. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 2), pages 269-304, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valeria Bonis & Luca Spataro, 2018. "Optimal income taxation and migration," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 867-882, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tidiane Ly, 2018. "Sub-metropolitan tax competition with household and capital mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1129-1169, October.
    2. Kangoh Lee, 2003. "Factor Ownership and Governmental Strategic Interaction," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 345-361, April.
    3. Thierry Madiès & Sonia Paty & Yvon Rocaboy, 2005. "Externalités fiscales horizontales et verticales. Où en est la théorie du fédéralisme financier ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 115(1), pages 17-63.
    4. Robin Boadway, 2001. "Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations: The Facilitator of Fiscal Decentralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 93-121, June.
    5. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2011. "Intranational Trade and Regional Tax Rates: A Welfare Analysis on the U.S. Economy," Working Papers 1106, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    6. Cassette, Aurélie & Paty, Sonia, 2006. "La concurrence fiscale entre communes est-elle plus intense en milieu urbain qu’en milieu rural ?," Cahiers d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales (CESR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 78.
    7. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "Fiscal Competition and European Union: Contrasting Perspectives," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 10, pages 182-194, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Sam Bucovetsky & Michael Smart, 2006. "The Efficiency Consequences of Local Revenue Equalization: Tax Competition and Tax Distortions," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(1), pages 119-144, January.
    9. Gross, Till & Klein, Paul & Makris, Miltiadis, 2020. "Residence- and source-based capital taxation in open economies with infinitely-lived consumers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    10. Rainald Borck & Jun Oshiro & Yasuhiro Sato, 2022. "Property Tax Competition: A Quantitative Assessment," CESifo Working Paper Series 10002, CESifo.
    11. Kunce, Mitch, 2000. "A Nash tax game extending the generality of the Henry George Theorem," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 229-233, February.
    12. Lee, Kangoh, 2002. "Factor Mobility and Income Redistribution in a Federation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 77-100, January.
    13. Glazer, Amihai & Kanniainen, Vesa & Poutvaara, Panu, 2008. "Income taxes, property values, and migration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 915-923, April.
    14. Wilson, John Douglas & Wildasin, David E., 2004. "Capital tax competition: bane or boon," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(6), pages 1065-1091, June.
    15. Jan K. Brueckner, 2023. "Is strategic interaction among governments just a modern phenomenon? Evidence on welfare competition under Britain’s 19th-century Poor Law," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(4), pages 879-912, August.
    16. Ania, Ana B. & Wagener, Andreas, 2016. "Decentralized redistribution in a laboratory federation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 49-59.
    17. Koethenbuerger, Marko, 2014. "Competition for migrants in a federation: Tax or transfer competition?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 110-118.
    18. Edith Sand & Assaf Razin, 2007. "The Survival of Social Security and Immigration," 2007 Meeting Papers 16, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Marton, James & Wildasin, David E., 2007. "State government cash and in-kind benefits: Intergovernmental fiscal transfers and cross-program substitution," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 1-20, January.
    20. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff & Maurice Marchand, 2003. "Equalization and the Decentralization of Revenue–Raising in a Federation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 201-228, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:8:y:2008:i:1:n:35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.