Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor (non-tenure track) at the Institute of Public Finance, Leibniz University Hannover, in the group of Maximilian Todtenhaupt. I hold a PhD in economics from KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt where my supervisor was Dominika Langenmayr. I was a visiting researcher at the University of Cape Town (2026), New York University (2019), and NHH Bergen (2018). 

I am an applied microeconomist working on policy-relevant questions in public, labor, and distributional economics as well as in political economy. I investigate behavioral responses to changing institutional frameworks and economic incentive systems, with most of my work oriented toward low- and middle-income countries. My primary interest lies in understanding how individuals and households respond to uncertainty, income fluctuations, and external shocks. Methodologically, I focus on the econometric estimation of behavioral parameters using quasi-experimental methods. This includes estimating the causal effects of policy interventions, such as the effect of pension generosity on fertility and of the automatic exchange of financial account information and citizenship-by-investment programs on offshore tax evasion. 

On this website you can learn about my research, teaching, and contributions to the public debate.

You can find my CV here. 

My email address is zyska@fiwi.uni-hannover.de.