Despite the allure of low taxes, Mr. Depardieu hasn’t been seen in Russia since picking up his passport and seems to be hedging his bets by maintaining a residence in Belgium. Meanwhile, Russian billionaires are snapping up trophy properties in high-tax London, New York and Beverly Hills, Calif.

“I don’t hear about many billionaires moving to Moscow,” said Robert Tannenwald, a lecturer in economic policy at Brandeis University and former Federal Reserve economist. Along with Nicholas Johnson, he and Mr. Shure are co-authors of “Tax Flight Is a Myth,” a 2011 research paper.

Of course, some people do move for tax reasons, especially wealthy retirees, athletes and other celebrities without strong ties to high-tax locations, like jobs and families. In renouncing his French citizenship, Mr. Depardieu follows other French celebrities, the chef Alain Ducasse, the singer Johnny Hallyday and Yannick Noah, a former tennis star. Several Paris hedge fund managers have decamped to London and the fashion mogul Bernard Arnault applied for Belgian citizenship, though not, he has said, for tax reasons.

Stars like Mr. Depardieu and Mr. Mickelson certainly have incentives to move. Mr. Depardieu complained that he paid 85 percent of his income in taxes in France last year and has paid 145 million euros over 45 years. France has a top rate of 41 percent as well as a wealth tax, and the Socialist president, François Hollande, is trying to impose a temporary surcharge of 75 percent on incomes over 1 million euros. Mr. Mickelson earned more than $60 million last year, Sports Illustrated estimates, which means the three-percentage-point California tax increase could add up to an additional $1.8 million in tax.

Gregory Mankiw, an economist at Harvard, said that tax rates did affect migration, at least of certain groups. “Rich people can pretty much live anywhere,” he said. “If you’re a retired person trying to decide between Palm Beach and Santa Barbara, the tax difference between Florida and California is huge. If you’re an academic choosing between Stanford and Harvard, it might be a factor.” (Massachusetts has a flat income tax rate of 5.3 percent.)

For this affluent and mobile group, it doesn’t much matter where their official residence is. Mr. Mickelson and Mr. Woods travel the tournament circuit throughout the year. Very wealthy people often have multiple homes in different locations, even different countries, and can shuttle among them to avoid local taxes. One reason so many luxury apartments in Manhattan sit empty is that their foreign owners can’t spend more than half the year in them without incurring United States income tax liability.

A star like Mr. Depardieu “can go to Paris whenever he wants,” Mr. Shure noted. Professor Tannenwald agreed. “People who are very rich, who are retired or who aren’t tied to a particular location, do change their residency at a high rate based on tax differentials.”