Economics

Ability to raise sufficient tax revenues efficiently and equitably to fund public services is one of the central challenges in economic development. This problem arises partly because of inability to create the capacity to enforce taxes effectively, thus leading to increased tax evasion. Reducing tax evasion requires a detailed understanding of the drivers of tax evasion and the optimal allocation of scarce tax enforcement resources.

The economies of many developing countries have experienced huge transformations over the past 20 years, but a major cost of development has been air and water pollution. The fact that pollution remains a central problem suggests that it may be very costly to mitigate pollution, in terms of lost productivity and revenues. An opposing view is the "Porter hypothesis" that postulates that environmental policies lead to greater productivity.

The past forty years have been characterized by a secular decline in interest rates and, relatedly, an increase in asset valuations. This proposal consists of two projects that examine the distributional effects of declining interest rates. The first project explores the effect of declining interest rates on wealth inequality. The second examines the welfare implications of declining interest rates by focusing on who gains and who loses from this trend. The project further collects detailed data on high wealth income, and granular data on asset purchases from financial filings and surveys.