Transfer Taxes and Household Mobility: Distortion on the Housing or Labor Market?

Christian Hilber and Teemu Lyytikäinen

SERC Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: We estimate the effect of the UK Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) - a transfer tax on the purchase price of property or land - on different types of household mobility using micro data. Exploiting a discontinuity in the tax schedule, we isolate the impact of the tax from other determinants of mobility. We compare homeowners with self-assessed house values on either sides of a cut-off value where the tax rate jumps from 1 to 3 percent. We find that a higher SDLT has a strong negative impact on housing-related and short distance moves but does not adversely affect job-induced or long distance mobility. Overall, our results suggest that transfer taxes may mainly distort housing rather than labor markets.

Keywords: transfer taxes; stamp duty; transaction costs; homeownership; household mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 H21 H27 J61 R21 R31 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab, nep-pbe and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/sercdp0216.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Transfer taxes and household mobility: Distortion on the housing or labor market? (2017)
Working Paper: Transfer taxes and household mobility: distortion on the housing or labor market? (2017)
Working Paper: Transfer taxes and household mobility: distortion on the housing or labor market? (2017)
Working Paper: Transfer Taxes and Household Mobility: Distortion on the Housing or Labor Market? (2015)
Working Paper: Transfer taxes and household mobility: distortion on the housing or labour market (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:sercdp:0216

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