Reform of the Personal Income Tax in Spain: Effects on Internal Mobility of the Unemployed

摘要

In this paper, we examined whether, and to what extent, the internal mobility of the unemployed in Spain was affected by a reform in the personal income tax that introduced a mobility incentive targeting this group. The reform introduced a distinct change in the incentives to relocate for work among unemployed workers living in certain regions of Spain. The reform's effectiveness was assessed by means of a difference-in-differences econometric approach, combined with nationally representative administrative data. The results suggested that the reform led, at most, to relatively few new migration flows, and accounted for the existence of differential migration trends between the regions that adopted the reform and those that did not.