Research interests

Public Economics, Micro-econometrics, Urban Economics.

1. Published works (or under review)

“On the political economy of state corporate tax reforms in the U.S.” Research in Applied Economics, ISSN 1948-5433, Volume 11, N°3 September 2019 (https://doi.org/10.5296/rae.v11i3.15043)

• This paper discusses the political economy of U.S. state corporate tax reforms. Using a unique dataset of state effective corporate tax rates over the period 1969-2015, I observe that business tax changes are associated with tax competition, swings in economic cycles, and left-right political ideology. In contrast, long-term debt and budgetary pressures do not correlate with state corporate tax policies. Moreover, I document a regional heterogeneity and notice a slowdown in state tax changes after the Federal Reform Act of 1986. These findings matter for the empirics of corporate tax incidence, which is increasingly concerned with the endogeneity between tax reforms and other economic developments.

“Do Large Corporate Tax Cuts Boost Wages? Evidence from Ohio" B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Volume 21, Issue 1, 2021.

www.degruyter.com/view/journals/bejeap/ahead-of-print/article-10.1515-bejeap-2019-0245/article-10.1515-bejeap-2019-0245.xml

• This paper evaluates a natural experiment which occurred in Ohio in 2005 when the state amended the tax system. The change sets up a dramatic corporate tax cut of 8.3 percentage points (p.p.) over the period 2006-2010 corresponding to a 96.9 percent reduction in the tax. Policymakers also reduced the personal income tax over the same period by 0.95 percentage point (p.p.). I investigate the incidence of the reform on wages in general and corporate wages in particular. To do so, I use a synthetic control method along with an event study design applied to individual records of the Current Population Survey (CPS). I conclude that the reform did not have a significant effect on real wages. However, the corporate tax cut seems to have caused a one-time increase in corporate wages at the onset of the reform.

"Comparing distributional impact estimates in spatially aggregated versus disaggregated CGE models" with Harvey Cutler, Yuchen Hu, Sophie McKee and Martin Shields, under review.

• Policy makers are increasingly attentive to the distributional impacts of economic shocks, including their spatial dimensions. We describe a methodology for constructing highly spatialized computable general equilibrium models in the United States using publicly available data that are either inexpensive or free. We illustrate our technique by constructing a highly spatialized model and comparing it to one with no spatial characteristics for the Memphis, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area. The spatial model is divided into eight sub-county regions that are inter-connected via income, consumption, and production flows. The aspatial model lacks these characteristics, but the aggregate data in both models are identical. We compare simulation results for the two models via three unique scenarios representing a wide range of economic shocks to a regional economy. Overall, we find that simulation results from the spatial model can meaningfully differ from the aggregated model on a variety of measures, and that the spatial model provides unique insights on the distributional aspects of household income.

2. Working Papers

“The corporate tax, apportionment rules and employment: Evidence using policy discontinuity at U.S. state borders” (MPRA Working Paper 94875)

• A recent set of empirical works highlights a puzzling asymmetric response of labor market outcomes to the corporate tax. This paper explores a potential source of this disparity, using differentials in profit accounting rules across U.S. states. I exploit policy discontinuities at state borders by pairing counties in states featuring a tax change with their contiguous counterparts in control states. I notice that corporate tax cuts do not boost employment while tax hikes reduce job creation. The incidence of tax increases on employment seems limited in states with a single sales factor apportionment formula and pronounced in states that use a triple factor apportionment rule. I present a basic conceptual framework that explains this pattern.

“Should French Municipalities Densify to Reduce their Expenditures?” with Julie Le-Gallo, Marie Breuillé and Camille Grivault (MPRA Working Paper 94985)

• The relationship between population density and the costs of public services remains the subject of controversies due to the wide range of estimated elasticities. This disparity derives essentially from measurement and identification issues. This paper addresses both considerations using a sample of French municipalities. First, we measure density differently from the traditional literature and consider two metrics. Second, we exploit historical records of population and roads along with soil characteristics as exogenous sources of variation. Our preferred specifications imply elasticity estimates of -0.30, -0.09, and -0.26 for current, capital and total expenditures per capita. Under a cubic B-spline specification, current spending initially decreases with density before increasing. In contrast, capital spending features several return points at 20, 30 and 50 inhabitants plus jobs per ha respectively.

“The urban legacy of the French Railroad Revolution: Evidence from unfinished roadways” with Julie Le-Gallo, Marie Breuillé and Camille Grivault (Downloadable version here)

• The railway revolution that swayed through Europe in the nineteenth century left a legacy of unexplored networks. In this paper, we observe a subset of unfinished railways to evaluate the impact of accessibility to railroads on population growth. Using the random nature of the achieved and unachieved portions, we compare municipalities located around the planned but not realized segment of the railways to those in the vicinity of the operated sections. Our results indicate that the railways boost population growth in the medium and long-run. However, the medium-run effects are only visible in municipalities with high pre-arrival population. The railroads also seem to have solved a coordination problem in the sense that treated municipalities were more likely to gain access to other transport infrastructures later.