Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize

Richard Musgrave on his 90th birthday

The IIPF created the "Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize" in 2003 to honor and encourage younger scholars whose work meets the high standards of scientific quality, creativity and relevance that has been a mark of the Musgraves’ contribution to public finance.

It is awarded annually, on the advice of the Chair of the Scientific Committee, to the author(s) of the best paper presented at the Congress. Authors need to be under 40 years old. In the case of co-authored papers all authors need to be under 40. Age is measured as of the ending day of the Congress, when the prize is awarded.

Authors who wish to be considered for the "Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize" should indicate this when submitting their papers for presentation at the Congress.

The 2007 Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize has been awarded to Ruud A. de Mooij (CPB Netherlands and Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Gaëtan Nicodème (European Commission and Université Libre de Bruxelles) for their paper "Corporate Tax Policy and Incorporation in the EU".

The paper explores to what extent income shifting from the personal to the corporate tax base can explain the fact that declining corporate tax rates have come along with rising tax-to-GDP ratios. The authors exploit a panel of European data on firm creation and legal form of business to analyze income shifting via increased entrepreneurship and incorporation. Their simulations suggest that between 10% and 17% of corporate tax revenue can be attributed to income shifting. The latter is found to have raised the corporate tax-to-GDP ratio by some 0.2% since the early 1990s.