On redistributive taxation under the threat of high-skill emigration

Abstract

The increasing international mobility of high-skill individuals is often seen as posing a threat to domestic social welfare, by limiting the ability of governments to tax these individuals and redistribute to the poor. In this paper, we examine a simple dynamic nonlinear income tax model without commitment. In this setting, it is shown that the threat of emigration by high-skill individuals facilitates redistribution and increases social welfare in the short-run, and has no effect on social welfare over the long-run.