税收激励与回流迁移

摘要

We study how tax incentives affect the return migration of high-skilled expatriates to their home country, exploiting a generous income tax break for returnees in Italy. Using administrative data and a Triple-Difference design, we estimate a migration elasticity to the average net-of-tax rate just below one. Responses are sizable across the upper half of the earnings distribution, indicating that tax-induced migration is not limited to top earners. A cost-benefit analysis reveals that, while costly in the short term, the scheme pays for itself in present value if a sufficiently large fraction of returnees remains after the scheme elapses.