I am an applied microeconomist. I received my PhD from Princeton University in 2024, where my research focused on behavioral effects of taxes and transfers.
Working Papers
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Tax Complexity as Price Discrimination
We develop a model where taxpayers acquire costly knowledge to lower their tax burden. When income elasticities rise with income, tax complexity acts as a screening device similar to price discrimination—enabling greater tax revenue without efficiency loss, but increasing inequality. Using administrative data on Norwegian business owners facing a complex income classification regime, we find widespread suboptimal tax choices. Overpayments are larger among women, immigrants, and less wealthy individuals. We estimate that failure to optimize is associated with a lower tax elasticity, in line with our theoretical predictions.
Publications
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The Tax Elasticity of Capital Gains and Revenue-Maximizing Rates
This paper uses a direct-projections approach to estimate the effect of capital gains taxation on realizations at the state level and then develops a framework for determining revenue-maximizing rates at the federal level. We find that the elasticity of revenues with respect to the tax rate over a 10-year period is −0.5 to −0.3, indicating that capital gains tax cuts do not pay for themselves and that a 5 percentage point rate increase would yield $18 to $30 billion in annual federal tax revenue. Our long-run estimates yield revenue-maximizing capital gains tax rates of 38 to 47 percent.
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The Welfare Magnet Hypothesis: Evidence from an Immigrant Welfare Scheme in Denmark
We study the effects of welfare generosity on international migration using reforms of immigrant welfare benefits in Denmark. The first reform, implemented in 2002, lowered benefits for non-EU immigrants by about 50%, with no changes for natives or EU immigrants. The policy was later repealed and re-introduced. Based on a quasi-experimental research design, we find sizeable effects: the benefit reduction reduced the net flow of immigrants by about 5,000 people per year, and the subsequent repeal of the policy reversed the effect almost exactly. The implied elasticity of migration with respect to benefits equals 1.3. This represents some of the first causal evidence on the welfare magnet hypothesis.