It makes sense intuitively. By the time you become a billionaire, you can live wherever you want and have any kind of lifestyle you desire. Billionaires living in Spain live in Spain because they want to live in Spain. And all wealth past a certain point is meaningless, just a number for bragging rights. Whether someone has $10 billion or $7 billion makes zero difference in their actual lifestyle or quality of life. If you’re already in a country you’re happy with, why leave for a tax that has absolutely no impact on your quality of life?
This is exactly what Young’s research shows; generally, when the wealthy move, they move to places with good quality of life. Tax brackets don’t really factor into it. Often raising taxes on the wealthy actually increases the attractiveness of a region because the wealthy want to live in places with low crime rates, good infrastructure, that sort of thing. And a well funded government has more capacity to create those things.
It makes sense intuitively. By the time you become a billionaire, you can live wherever you want and have any kind of lifestyle you desire. Billionaires living in Spain live in Spain because they want to live in Spain. And all wealth past a certain point is meaningless, just a number for bragging rights. Whether someone has $10 billion or $7 billion makes zero difference in their actual lifestyle or quality of life. If you’re already in a country you’re happy with, why leave for a tax that has absolutely no impact on your quality of life?
This is exactly what Young’s research shows; generally, when the wealthy move, they move to places with good quality of life. Tax brackets don’t really factor into it. Often raising taxes on the wealthy actually increases the attractiveness of a region because the wealthy want to live in places with low crime rates, good infrastructure, that sort of thing. And a well funded government has more capacity to create those things.