Journal: CESifo Working Papers

Abbreviation

Publisher

CESifo

Journal Volumes

ISSN

2364-1428
1617-9595

Description

Filters

Reset filters

Search Results

Publications1 - 10 of 82
  • Mobility Responses to Special Tax Regimes for the Super- Rich: Evidence from Switzerland
    Item type: Working Paper
    Baselgia, Enea; Martínez, Isabel Z. (2024)
    CESifo Working Papers
    We use a novel rich-list data set to estimate the sensitivity of the location choice of superrich foreigners to a special tax regime, under which wealthy foreigners are taxed on their living expenses, rather than their true income and wealth. We are the first to evaluate this controversial Swiss policy, and show that when some Swiss cantons abolished this practice, their stock of super-rich foreigners dropped by 43% as a consequence. We find no response for the Swiss super-rich, who were unaffected by the policy change.
  • Fiscal Autonomy and Self-Determination
    Item type: Working Paper
    Loumeau, Gabriel; Stettler, Christian (2021)
    CESifo Working Papers
    This paper studies the equilibrium effects of local fiscal autonomy accounting for benefits from self-determination. It proposes a quantifiable structural equilibrium framework in which imperfectly mobile heterogeneous households sort themselves across jurisdictions under endogenous public good provision. We calibrate the framework to fit the economic and geographic characteristics of the Canton of Bern using household-level data. In particular, we exploit quasi-natural policy variation in voting rights to quantify benefits from self-determination, and employ machine learning methods to accurately represent the local political process. We find that restricting local fiscal autonomy decreases welfare for (almost) all households.
  • Estimating bargaining-related tax advantages of multinational firms
    Item type: Working Paper
    Egger, Peter H.; Strecker, Nora; Zoller-Rydzek, Benedikt Marian Maximilian (2018)
    CESifo Working Papers
  • Does High Inflation Cause Central Bankers to Lose Their Job? Evidence Based on a New Data Set
    Item type: Working Paper
    Dreher, Axel; Sturm, Jan-Egbert; de Haan, Jakob (2007)
    CESifo Working Papers
    This paper introduces new data on the term in office of central bank governors in 137 countries for 1970-2004. Our panel models show that the probability that a central bank governor is replaced in a particular year is positively related to the share of the term in office elapsed, political and regime instability, the occurrence of elections, and inflation. The latter result suggests that the turnover rate of central bank governors (TOR) is a poor indicator of central bank independence. This is confirmed in models for cross-section inflation in which TOR becomes insignificant once its endogeneity is taken into account.
  • Is it just Luring Reported Profit? The Case of European Patent Boxes
    Item type: Working Paper
    Köthenbürger, Marko; Liberini, Federica; Stimmelmayr, Michael (2018)
    CESifo Working Papers
    Patent box regimes have become increasingly popular as an instrument to attract taxable income from intellectual property (IP). This paper assesses the quantitative impact of patent box regimes on profit shifting by multinational enterprises (MNEs). We proxy the ability to access the tax benefit of the patent box by historical IP ownership. On average, affiliates belonging to MNEs with historical IP ownership report, after the introduction of a patent box, 8.5 percent higher profit compared to their counterparts with no IP ownership. Patent boxes do not only lure reported profit. The pre-tax profit change is a net effect and thus also accounts for reversed internal debt shifting out of the country and productivity changes. The overall behavioral adjustments might lower corporate tax revenues. Further, the design of the patent box and the existence of a tax haven affiliate within an MNE turn out to be critical for the amount of profits shifted.
  • Taxation in Digital Media Markets
    Item type: Working Paper
    Köthenbürger, Marko; Kind, Hans J. (2016)
    CESifo Working Papers
  • Tracking and Taxing the Super-Rich: Insights from Swiss Rich Lists
    Item type: Working Paper
    Baselgia, Enea; Martínez, Isabel Z. (2022)
    CESifo Working Papers
    We collect, digitize, and supplement the Swiss rich list for the years 1989–2020 published in the “BILANZ” business magazine to gain new insights on the structure and dynamics of top wealth in Switzerland. Using this data allows us study the super-rich in Switzerland in ways that were not possible in previous research based largely on tax data. In addition to presenting this valuable data source, and also discussing its limitations, we make three distinctive contributions to the literature. First, we present a number of new facts on the wealth elite in Switzerland. We show that about 60% of the super-rich are heirs—a much larger fraction than in the United States where many of the super-rich are self-made—and that five in ten super-rich residing in Switzerland are foreign-born. Second, we estimate the sensitivity of the location-decision of super-rich foreigners to a preferential tax scheme that offers wealthy foreigners to be taxed on their expenses rather than on their true income and wealth. We are the first to evaluate this policy—similar to “non- dom” taxation that exists in other countries like the UK or Italy—and show that when some of the Swiss cantons abolished this practice, they lost about 30% of their stock of super-rich taxpayers. Third, we use the wealth series compiled in our BILANZ dataset to estimate the wealth shares of the top 0.01% in Switzerland and show how they compare to earlier estimates by Föllmi and Martínez (2017) based on wealth tax data. We find that top wealth concentration is higher than previously assumed, an conclude that top wealth shares based on tax data constitute a lower bound, while the estimates based on our BILANZ data are upper bounds.
  • Taxing Multinationals in the Presence of Internal Capital Markets
    Item type: Working Paper
    Köthenbürger, Marko; Stimmelmayr, Michael (2013)
    CESifo Working Papers
    There is ample evidence that internal capital markets incur efficiency costs for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This paper analyzes whether tax avoidance behavior interacts with the costs of running an internal capital market and how policies of competing governments respond to it. We show that the interaction in itself may lead to profit taxes that are too high (low) from a social perspective, provided the costs are attenuated (magnified) by higher profit taxes. We also show that internal efficiency costs might render infrastructure provision inefficiently low. Further, we clarify the implications of the MNE’s decision to set up an internal capital market and the effect of external finance on the behavior of competing governments.
  • Tax Competition and Income Sorting
    Item type: Working Paper
    Schaltegger, Christoph A.; Somogyi, Frank; Sturm, Jan-Egbert (2009)
    CESifo Working Papers
    In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for the influence of income taxes on the choice of residence of taxpayers at the local level. The fact that Swiss communities can individually set tax multipliers thereby shifting the progressive tax scheme which is fixed at the cantonal (state) level enables us to study the effect of differences in income taxation on individuals’ choice of location within an economically and culturally homogeneous region. Using panel IV regressions covering the years 1991-2003 and 171 communities in the Swiss canton of Zurich and spatial error regressions for the 171 communities in 2003, we find substantial evidence for income sorting.
  • Close Encounters of the European Kind: Economic Integration, Sectoral Heterogeneity and Structural Reforms
    Item type: Working Paper
    Campos, Nauro F.; Eichenauer, Vera; Sturm, Jan-Egbert (2020)
    CESifo Working Papers
    This paper addresses two main questions: (a) Has European integration hindered the implementation of labour, financial and product market structural reforms? (b) Do the effects of these reforms vary more across sectors than across countries? Using more granular reform measures, longer time windows and a larger sample of countries than previous studies, we confirm that the euro triggered product but neither labour nor financial market reforms. Differently from previous studies, we find that: (a) the Single Market has similar effects to the euro, and (b) sectoral heterogeneity appears less important in explaining the economic impacts of reforms than country heterogeneity.
Publications1 - 10 of 82