Taxation and the International Mobility of Inventors

54 Pages Posted: 16 Mar 2015 Last revised: 12 Jun 2023

See all articles by Ufuk Akcigit

Ufuk Akcigit

University of Chicago - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Salomé Baslandze

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Stefanie Stantcheva

Harvard University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 2015

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of top tax rates on inventors' international mobility since 1977. We put special emphasis on “superstar” inventors, those with the most abundant and most valuable patents. We use panel data on inventors from the United States and European Patent Offices to track inventors' locations over time and combine it with international effective top tax rate data. We construct a detailed set of proxies for inventors' counterfactual incomes in each possible destination country including, among others, measures of patent quality and technological fit with each potential destination. Exploiting the differential impact of changes in the top tax rate on inventors of different qualities, we find that superstar top 1% inventors are significantly affected by top tax rates when deciding where to locate. The elasticity to the net-of-tax rate of the number of domestic superstar inventors is relatively small, around 0.03, while the elasticity of the number of foreign superstar inventors is around 1. Inventors who work in multinational companies are more likely to take advantage of tax differentials. On the other hand, if the company of an inventor has a higher share of its research activity in a given country, the inventor is less sensitive to the tax rate in that country.

Suggested Citation

Akcigit, Ufuk and Baslandze, Salome and Stantcheva, Stefanie, Taxation and the International Mobility of Inventors (March 2015). NBER Working Paper No. w21024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2578872

Ufuk Akcigit (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Department of Economics ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

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Salome Baslandze

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/sabaslandze/home

Stefanie Stantcheva

Harvard University - Department of Economics ( email )

Littauer Center
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

HOME PAGE: http://scholar.harvard.edu/stantcheva/home

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

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