What Do Immigrants Value Most About Switzerland? Evidence of the Relative Importance of Income Taxes

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This study investigates whether migrants, once they have decided to move to Switzerland, prefer to settle in municipalities that feature low income taxes. In line with the existing literature, results from cluster-specific count data models indicate that income taxes are a significant pull factor for international migration decisions. The same is true with respect to intra-national migration. However, dominance analysis suggests that the relative impact of taxes compared to other locational factors is rather low. Urbanity characteristics, labormarket, and network effects are by far the most important factors to influence the choice of destination municipality. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL-Code: H240, H730, J610, R230.

Heterogeneity in Income Tax Capitalization: Evidence from the Swiss Housing Market

“…They find evidence that rich and highly qualified households are more willing to migrate based on tax incentives than the average household. MoRGER (2013) finds that income taxes are a significant pull factor for international migration decisions and intra-national migration within Switzerland; however, his results suggest that the relative impact of taxes compared to other locational factors is rather low.…”

Behavioral Responses to Local Tax Rates: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Foreigners' Tax Scheme in Switzerland

“…Schmidheiny (2006a) investigates individual-level administrative data on moving households from the metropolitan area of Basel, Switzerland, and finds that rich households are systematically more likely to move to low-tax municipalities. The most recent study on intra-national migration in Switzerland, Morger (2013), finds that local tax rates matter in location decisions but to a lesser extent than 12. 73 -13 12.46 -12.73 12.19 -12.46 11.92 -12.19 11.65 -11.92 11.38 -11.65 11.11 -11.38 10.84 -11.11 10.57 -10.84 10.3 -10.57 0 -10.3 Ordinary tax in % Figure 1: Ordinary average income tax rates in the canton of Zurich.…”