Delayed integration as a possible remedy for the race to the bottom

It has been a long-standing concern in the literature that household mobility implies a serious threat to redistributive taxation. This paper considers the effects of delayed integration of migrants into the redistributive system of the target country. We argue that delayed integration may introduce a time consistency problem into governments' tax plans that reduces a region's incentive to undercut other regions' tax rates and can bring tax competition to a halt. Due to delayed integration, rich migrants cease to benefit from the lower tax rate in the current period. At the same time, the region's promise of a low rate in the future lacks credibility, since delayed integration locks in migrants once they are settled. We also explore the case where poor recipients of social assistance are mobile, while the rich are immobile.