Selected Work in Progress

The Output Cost of Inheritance click here for latest version!

Joint with Marius Brülhart, Aurélien Eyquem, and Enrico Rubolino CESifo Working Paper No. 12255, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20837 (November 2025)

TLDR: see the presentation at the NBER Public Econ Meeting in Fall 2025

Abstract: We study how inheritance affects labor supply over the life cycle, and we quantify its aggregate impact. Tracking earnings histories around some 135,000 inheritances and 5,000 lottery wins, we exploit the quasi-random timing and size of these events to identify labor supply responses with high precision. Earnings responses are negative at all ages but peak between ages 55 and 64, largely due to early retirement. Inheritances generate smaller impact responses than comparable lottery wins, consistent with anticipation effects. Our estimates match the predictions of a life-cycle model with endogenous labor supply and early retirement. Aggregating model-based responses across the population, our point estimate of the GDP cost of inheritance is 1.1%. The timing, size, and anticipation of inheritance all contribute to shaping its macroeconomic consequences.
Funding: SNSF Project Grant 176458 "The Influence of Taxation on Wealth and Income Inequality"

Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in 15 Destination Countries

Joint with Leah Boustan, Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen, Ran Abramitzky, Elisa Jácome, Alan Manning, Santiago Pérez, and 31 others. NBER Working Paper No 33558, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20003 (March 2025). R&R American Economic Review.

Abstract: We estimate intergenerational mobility of immigrants and their children in fifteen receiving countries. We document large income gaps for first-generation immigrants that diminish in the second generation. Around half of the second-generation gap can be explained by differences in parental income, with the remainder due to differential rates of absolute mobility. The daughters of immigrants enjoy higher absolute mobility than daughters of locals in most destinations, while immigrant sons primarily enjoy this advantage in countries with long histories of immigration. Cross-country differences in absolute mobility are not driven by parental country-of-origin, but instead by destination labor markets and immigration policy.
Funding: SNSF Project Grant 212814 "Intergenerational Mobility: Multi-Dimensional Patterns, Determinants, and Effects on Beliefs"

Fair Inequality

Lead author joint with Sam Bowles, Wendy Carlin, Max Greenberg, and Lieke Beekers; 38 further authors.

Abstract: If differences in market labor earnings between members of a population were to be distributed identically to the observed differences between same-sex siblings, how much inequality would remain? Consistent with Rawls’ principle of fair equality of opportunity, we provide an answer to this question, the “fair Gini coefficient," which we estimate for 16 medium- and high-income countries, using consistently defined administrative data. And we show that it is a lower bound for the level of inequality produced by an income-generating process in the hypothetical absence of gender and parental advantage. We find that countries with lower market earnings inequality are not distinctively fair; the fair Gini coefficient relative to total inequality differs little across countries, from Sweden to Brazil. We characterize the formal properties of our statistic and six other measures of gender and parental advantage, and provide estimates from our data set.
Funding: SNSF Project Grant 212814 "Intergenerational Mobility: Multi-Dimensional Patterns, Determinants, and Effects on Beliefs"

Inequality and Redistribution in Switzerland: Evidence from Distributional National Accounts (DINA)

Joint with Enea Baselgia, Julian Koller, and Remo Gurtner

Abstract: This paper constructs the first Distributional National Accounts (DINA) for Switzerland, covering 2003–2022, by linking individual-level income and wealth tax data with national accounts. The Swiss DINA provide a comprehensive measure of income and wealth inequality, capturing all components of national income rather than relying solely on tax statistics. They allow us to assess how economic growth has been distributed, who bears the burden of income, wealth, corporate, and consumption taxes, and how progressive the overall tax system is. The individual-level data enable analysis of the joint distribution of income and wealth, as well as differences by gender and age. Exploiting Switzerland’s fiscal decentralization, we examine the distributional effects of local tax competition and evaluate how the wealth tax—about 12\% of personal tax revenue—shapes overall progressivity. Our approach combines detailed tax records, survey data, and national accounts, with full tax coverage eliminating the need to impute non-filers.

Intergenerational Mobility: Multi-Dimensional Patterns, Determinants, and Effects on Beliefs

Funding: SNSF Project Grant 212814 "Intergenerational Mobility: Multi-Dimensional Patterns, Determinants, and Effects on Beliefs"

Mortality Inequality in Switzerland

Joint with Tim Kircali and Hannes Schwandt

The Composition and Mobility of Top Earners - Evidence from Switzerland

Draft (January 2019)
This paper is not dead, it's just resting.

Abstract: This paper studies income mobility at the top in Switzerland, where previous research Föllmi and Martinez (2017) has found that top income shares have been rising and have become more volatile since the mid-1990s. I use full-population social security data over the period 1981-2012 and find that persistence within the top 1% has been slightly decreasing, yet not enough to counteract rising inequality. In addition, I shed light on gender inequality at the top, and the share of foreign-born and self-employed among top earners in Switzerland. With a share of only 5%, women are strongly under-represented among the top 0.1% of earners. The share of foreign-born among the top 0.1%, on the other hand, rose from 20% to 40% in the 2000-2010 period. Finally, I study industry composition and the declining role of self-employment among top earners in Switzerland over the past 30 years.

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