"Success Taxes," Entrepreneurial Entry, and Innovation

Interest in the role of entrepreneurial entry in innovation raises the question about the extent to which tax policy encourages or discourages entry. We find that, while the level of the marginal tax rate has a negative effect on entrepreneurial entry, the progressivity of the tax also discourages entrepreneurship, and significantly so for some groups of households. These effects are traceable principally to the "upside," or "success," convexity of the household tax schedule.
Prospective entrants from a priori innovative industries and occupations are no less affected by the considerations we examine than are other prospective entrants. In terms of destination-based industry and occupation measures of innovative entrepreneurs, we find mixed evidence on whether innovative entrepreneurs differ from the general population. The results for entrepreneurs moving to innovative industries suggest that they may be unaffected by tax convexity, but the possible endogeneity of this measure of innovative entrepreneurs confounds interpreting this specification. Using education as a measure of potential for innovation, we find that tax convexity discourages entry into self-employment for people of all educational backgrounds. Overall, we find little evidence that the tax effects are focused simply on the employment changes of less-skified or less-promising potential entrants.