An Essay on Mobility’s Place in Optimal Taxation

Most models of optimal taxation with mobility deal only with real mobility, in the sense that moving out of a jurisdiction’s tax base entails a physical movement. But often escaping a jurisdiction’s tax net does not necessarily entail any physical movement, is often an avoidance (or even evasion) device, and can be accomplished by the “mere stroke of a pen.” The cost of such movement, and therefore the base elasticity, is endogenous to both private agent actions and government policy actions. In this paper, I explore the implications of expanding our notion of mobility by fi rst defi ning it and then addressing its place in optimal taxation.