About
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at
Maastricht University
and a member of the ERC project HIPPO
at University of Cologne.
My research is on the intersection of public, urban, and labor economics
with a particular focus on the effects of taxes and the study of inequality.
Research
Working Papers
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“Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation”,
with
Andreas Lichter,
Ingo Isphording,
Felix Pöge,
Thu-Van Nguyen,
and
Sebastian Siegloch,
ECONtribute Discussion Paper,
No. 202,
September 2022.
(Revise & resubmit, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy)
We study how business taxes affect establishments’ R&D activities. Relying on geocoded panel data targeting the universe of R&D-active establishments in Germany, we exploit around 7,300 changes in the local business tax rate over the period 1987–2013 for identification. Using event study techniques, we find a sizable negative and statistically significant effect of an increase in the local business tax on establishments’ total R&D spending and patents filed. Zooming into the process of innovation production, we uncover substantial heterogeneity in the impact of business taxation for various R&D inputs, among establishment characteristics, and for different types of research projects.
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“Fiscal and Economic Effects of Local Austerity”,
with
Melinda Fremerey
and
Andreas Lichter,
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 9800,
June 2022.
We study the consequences of a large-scale austerity program targeting financially-constrained municipalities in Germany. For identification, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of treatment among equally-distressed municipalities using a difference-in-differences design. The policy helped targeted municipalities to consolidate budgets. Whereas the amount of fiscal consolidation was homogeneous among treated municipalities, strategies of consolidation differed between smaller and larger municipalities. The former primarily cut spending on local public services, whereas the latter predominantly relied on tax increases. We detect no adverse economic effects but sizable negative effects on population levels and house prices in municipalities reducing local amenities.
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“Welfare Effects of Property Taxation”,
with
Sebastian Siegloch,
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 8952,
March 2021.
We analyze the welfare implications of property taxation. Using a sufficient statistics approach, we show that the tax incidence depends on how housing prices, labor and other types of incomes as well as public services respond to property tax changes. Empirically, we exploit the German institutional setting with 5,200 municipal tax reforms for identification. We find that higher taxes are fully passed on to rental prices after three years. The pass-through is lower when housing supply is inelastic. Combining reduced form estimates with our theoretical framework, we simulate the welfare effects of property taxes and show that they are regressive.
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“The Sensitivity of Structural Labor Supply Estimations to Modeling Assumptions”,
with
Andreas Peichl
and
Sebastian Siegloch,
IZA Discussion Paper,
No. 11425,
March 2018.
There is still considerable dispute about the magnitude of labor supply elasticities. While differences in estimates especially between micro and macro models are recently attributed to frictions and adjustment costs, we show that the variation in elasticities derived from structural labor supply models can also be explained by modeling assumptions. Specifically, we estimate 3,456 different models on the same data each representing a plausible combination of frequently made choices. While many modeling assumptions do not systematically affect labor supply elasticities, our controlled meta-analysis shows that results are very sensitive to the treatment of hourly wages in the estimation. For example, different (sensible) choices concerning the modeling of the underlying wage distribution and especially the imputation of (missing) wages lead to point estimates of elasticities between 0.2 and 0.65. We hence conclude that researchers should pay more attention to the robustness of their estimations with respect to the wage treatment.
Publications
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“Differential Exposure to Climate Change? Evidence from the 2021 Floods in Germany”,
with
Moritz Odersky,
Journal of Economic Inequality,
accepted,
October 2023.
We analyze the exposure of different income groups to the 2021 floods in Germany, which serve as an exemplary case of natural disasters intensified by anthropogenic climate change. To this end, we link official geo-coded satellite data on flood-affected buildings to neighborhood-level information on socio-economic status. We then document the empirical relationship between flood damages and household income. We limit comparisons to the vicinity of affected rivers and absorb a rich set of regional fixed effects to assess the differential exposure at the local level. Average household income is around 1,500 euros or three percent lower in flood-affected neighborhoods than in non-affected neighborhoods nearby. Average flood exposure is more than three times as high in the bottom sixty than in the upper forty percent of neighborhoods in terms of average household income. Our study is the first to document this regressive exposure along the income distribution based on actual flood damage data in Europe.
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“Asymmetric Labor-Supply Responses to Wage Changes: Experimental Evidence from an Online Labor Market”,
with
Philipp Dörrenberg
and
Denvil Duncan,
Labour Economics,
Vol. 81, No. 102305,
April 2023.
[online appendix, replication files]
We test whether labor supply responds symmetrically to wage increases and decreases using a randomized real effort online experiment. The results show that wage increases have smaller effects on labor supply than wage decreases of equal magnitude, especially on the extensive margin where the response to a wage decrease is twice that to a wage increase. This finding suggests that labor-supply responses to wage changes are asymmetric. We discuss the potential mechanisms behind our results including standard models of labor supply, reference dependence in consumption and reciprocity.
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“The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany”,
with
Andreas Lichter
and
Sebastian Siegloch,
Journal of the European Economic Association,
Vol. 19 (2), pp. 741–789,
April 2021.
[online appendix, slides, replication files]
We investigate the long-run effects of government surveillance on civic capital and economic performance, studying the case of the Stasi in East Germany. Exploiting regional variation in the number of spies and administrative features of the system, we combine a border discontinuity design with an instrumental variable strategy to estimate the long-term, post-reunification effect of government surveillance. We find that a higher spying density led to persistently lower levels of interpersonal and institutional trust in post-reunification Germany. We also find substantial and long-lasting economic effects of Stasi surveillance, resulting in lower income, higher exposure to unemployment, and lower self-employment.
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“Why Did Income Inequality in Germany Not Increase Further After 2005?”,
with
Martin Biewen
and
Martin Ungerer,
German Economic Review,
Vol. 20 (4), pp. 471–504,
December 2019.
While income inequality in Germany considerably increased in the years before 2005, this trend stopped after 2005. We address the question of what factors were responsible for the break in the inequality trend after 2005. Our analysis suggests that income inequality in Germany did not continue to rise after 2005 for the following reasons. First, we observe that the general rise in wage inequality that explained a lot of the inequality increase before 2005, became less steep (but did not stop) after 2005. Second, despite further increases in wage inequality after 2005, inequality in annual labour incomes did not increase further after 2005 because increased within-year employment opportunities compensated otherwise rising inequality in annual labour incomes. Third, income inequality did not fall in a more marked way after 2005 because also the middle and the upper part of the distribution benefited from the employment boom after 2006. Finally, we provide evidence that the effect of a wide range of other factors that are often suspected to have influenced the distribution such as capital incomes, household structures, population ageing, changes in the tax and transfer system and the financial crisis of 2008 did not significantly alter the distribution after 2005.
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“German Public Finances through the Financial Crisis”,
with
Maximilian Blömer,
Mathias Dolls,
Clemens Fuest,
and
Andreas Peichl,
Fiscal Studies,
Vol. 36 (4), pp. 453–474,
December 2015.
The German experience of the financial crisis was very different from that of most other European countries. Germany was hit by a very strong shock that was relatively concentrated in the exporting, manufacturing industries. In addition, the German labour market was very resilient during the crisis due to earlier labour market reforms and policy instruments facilitating labour hoarding. As a consequence, the public finances were only moderately affected and not many policy reforms had to be enacted. This paper presents the German experience of the financial crisis. We start by presenting the macroeconomic situation and how the crisis unfolded in Germany, before focusing on the situation of the public finances. Finally, we analyse the policy responses to the financial crisis.
Policy Contributions (in German)
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“Mehr Klartext in der Corona-Politik”,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 25, 2021, p. 18 (op-ed).
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“Stellungnahme zum Antrag ‘Länderöffnungsklausel für eine zukunftsfähige Grundsteuer in NRW nutzen – Bodenwertmodell jetzt umsetzen’”,
with Sebastian Siegloch,
hearing of the budget committee, state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia,
Stellungnahme 17/3255, November 2020.
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“Mehr Durchblick am Mietmarkt”,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 7, 2018, p. 18 (op-ed).
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“Grenzbelastungen im Steuer-, Abgaben- und Transfersystem: Fehlanreize, Reformoptionen und ihre Wirkungen auf inklusives Wachstum”,
with Florian Buhlmann and Andreas Peichl,
study commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, August 2017.
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“Kinderfreibeträge in der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung – Verteilungs- und Aufkommenswirkungen”,
with Maximilian Blömer, Florian Buhlmann, Andreas Peichl, and Holger Stichnoth,
Wirtschaftsdienst, Vol. 97 (4), pp. 266–271, April 2017.
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“Analyse der Verteilung von Einkommen und Vermögen in Deutschland”,
research project for the Armuts- und Reichtumsbericht der Bundesregierung,
study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs,
December 2016 (member of the project team).
-
“Kinderfreibeträge in der Sozialversicherung”,
with Maximilian Blömer, Florian Buhlmann, Andreas Peichl, Sebastian Siegloch, and Holger Stichnoth,
study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy,
September 2016.
-
“Integration des Solidaritätszuschlags in die Einkommensteuer – Verteilungs- und Aufkommenswirkungen”,
with Clemens Fuest, Andreas Peichl, and Holger Stichnoth,
Wirtschaftsdienst, Vol. 95 (5), pp. 319–324, May 2015.
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“Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung der statistischen Datengrundlage zur Beschreibung höchster Einkommen und Vermögen”,
with Holger Bonin and Andreas Peichl,
study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs,
ZEW Kurzexpertise, April 2015.
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“Finanzielle und Beschäftigungswirkungen unterschiedlicher Tarifverläufe alternativer Hinzuverdienstregelungen gegenüber dem Status quo”,
with Andreas Peichl, Nico Pestel, Hilmar Schneider, and Sebastian Siegloch,
study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology,
IZA Research Report, No. 46, September 2012.
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“Effizient, einfach und gerecht: Ein integriertes System zur Reform von Einkommensteuer und Sozialabgaben”,
with Andreas Peichl, Nico Pestel, Hilmar Schneider, and Sebastian Siegloch,
Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Vol. 13 (3), pp. 196–213, August 2012.
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“Einfach ist nicht immer gerecht: Eine Mikrosimulationsstudie der Kirchhof-Reform für die Einkommensteuer”,
with Andreas Peichl, Nico Pestel, Hilmar Schneider, and Sebastian Siegloch,
Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, Vol. 80 (4), pp. 147–160, October 2011.
Research Grants and Scholarships