Camille Landais
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
+44(0)20-7955-7864
c.landais@lse.ac.uk
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Professor of Economics, London School of Economics
NEW:
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«
Wealth and Property Taxation in the United States
»
with Sacha Dray & Stefanie Stantcheva
[Slides]
[Abstract]
Abstract: We study the history and geography of wealth accumulation in the US, using newly
collected historical property tax records since the early 1800s. The property tax in the US
was a comprehensive tax on all kinds of properties (real estate, personal property, and
financial wealth), making it one of the first “wealth taxes.” Drawing on a multitude of
historical records, we construct wealth series at the city, county, and state levels over time
offering a consistent, high-frequency, and long-term database of wealth in the US. We first
document the long-term evolution of household wealth in the US since the early 1800s,
showing that the US experience an extraordinary spur of wealth accumulation after the
Civil war and until the Great Depression. Before the Civil war, enslaved people were assessed as personal property of the enslavers, which is both morally abhorrent and implies
wrongly counting forced labor income flows as capital. The regional distribution of wealth
and the effects of the Civil war look very different if we do not count enslaved people as
property. Second, we study the spatial inequality in the US over the long run. The initial
distribution of property and subsequent growth over 60 years are strongly correlated with
geographic, economic, and demographic factors. In particular, wealth inequality has a robust negative correlation with growth in property over the long run. Finally, we study the
role of public policy, specifically the property tax (i.e., a “wealth tax”) on local capital accumulation, using the large and long variation in property tax rates across more than 300
municipalities. We find significant elasticities on the intensive and extensive (migration)
margins, as well as evidence for tax competition between cities.
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REVISED
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Retirement Consumption & Pension Design
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with Jonas Kolsrud, Daniel Reck & Johannes Spinnewijn
[Slides]
[Abstract]
Abstract: This paper leverages consumption data to evaluate the distributional effects of pension
reforms. Using administrative data from Sweden, we show that on average workers who
retire earlier have lower consumption while retired, experience larger drops in consumption
around retirement, and show higher marginal propensities to consume out of wealth
shocks. These findings imply that reforms incentivizing later retirement, as many countries
have recently done, incur a substantial consumption smoothing cost. Accounting for
selection on health and life expectancy further increases the redistributive cost of such reforms.
Turning to other features of pension policy, we find that reforms that redistribute
on the basis of early career labor supply would have opposite-signed redistributive effects,
while differentiating on wealth may help to target pension benefits toward those who are
vulnerable to larger drops in consumption around retirement.
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REVISED «
Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation
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with Henrik Kleven, Johanna Posch, Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimuller
[Abstract]
[Slides]
Abstract: Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute
to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and child care, using
administrative data covering the labor market and birth histories of Austrian
workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying
the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s, including the
introduction of maternal leave benefits in 1961, on the full dynamics of male and
female earnings. We then use these causal estimates to compute gender inequality
series for counterfactual scenarios regarding the evolution of family policies. Our
results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and child care subsidies
have had virtually no impact on gender convergence.
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Can Inheritance Taxation Promote Equality of
Opportunities?
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with Etienne Fize & Nicolas Grimprel
Forthcoming LSE Public Policy Review
[Abstract]
Abstract: After a period of relatively strong economic and social mobility during the
post-WWII decades, labor income is now quickly losing its capacity to fuel mobility
across the wealth distribution of Western economies, with inheritance becoming
again the main determinant of individuals’ ability to make it to the top of
the wealth distribution. At a time where inheritance taxation therefore seems desirable
from both equity and efficiency standpoints, most inheritance tax systems
are broken. They have failed to be truly progressive, and have remained very unpopular
among the public. In this paper, we propose general principles to guide
an in-depth reform of inheritance tax systems, to make them more efficient, progressive
and transparent. Using administrative survey data from France, we also
discuss whether the revenue generated by these reforms can promote equality of
opportunities, by guaranteeing a wealth endowment for all. Based on detailed
simulations, we explain why inheritance taxation alone cannot deal with the current
dynamics of concentration of wealth at the top of the distribution, and why
it needs to be complemented by progressive taxation of wealth and/or capital income.
[Slides]
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Micro-simuler l’impact des politiques publiques sur les ménages : pourquoi, comment et lesquelles ?
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with Francois Bourguignon
Note du Conseil d'Analyse Economique #74
[Slides]
[Abstract]
Abstract: La gestion des politiques publiques réclame des instruments
qui permettent d’anticiper l’impact des mesures
en place ou de réformes proposées en termes budgétaires
d’une part et distributifs d’autre part. Les modèles de
« micro-simulation » essaient de répondre à cette double
préoccupation en appliquant à chaque ménage d’un échantillon
représentatif de la population les modifications des
règles gouvernant la redistribution monétaire (prélèvements
et prestations) sur la base de la situation économique
des membres du ménage et sa composition.
Sont présents aujourd’hui sur la scène française trois
modèles de ce type : cette diversité est souhaitable, ne
serait-ce que par souci de transparence et de neutralité.
Cependant, les divers modèles ne sont pas toujours
basés sur les mêmes sources de données, n’offrent pas le
même niveau de détail et ne simulent pas nécessairement
le même ensemble de mesures, si bien que les bilans
redistributifs publiés ne sont pas toujours complètement
convergents. Cet état de fait risque de créer un certain
flou dans l’opinion et d’instiller un doute sur la précision
et la neutralité des modèles, d’autant plus que les médias
s’embarrassent rarement de distinguos méthodologiques.
Cette Note fait le point sur les instruments actuels de
micro-simulation en France, formule quelques propositions
afin d’éviter la confusion entre les divers résultats
publiés, et dresse quelques perspectives d’évolution.
Sur la présentation des résultats d’abord, il est souhaitable
que chaque organisme de micro-simulation utilise dans sa
publication principale, ou dans une annexe en ligne, une
grille de lecture qui soit commune à tous. L’exercice de
comparaison entrepris dans cette Note montre aussi l’intérêt
d’une démarche plus systématique de confrontation
de leurs pratiques à l’initiative des modélisateurs et/ou
des utilisateurs c’est pourquoi nous préconisons d’institutionnaliser
les échanges entre modélisateurs, utilisateurs
et producteurs de données au sein d’un séminaire
annuel. Ensuite, la granularité est une dimension clé de la
micro-simulation : des données plus fines permettraient
en particulier une meilleure appréhension des queues de
distribution (les plus modestes et les plus aisés) et de la
variation des inégalités « horizontales ». Il est ainsi recommandé
d’explorer l’utilisation de données administratives
exhaustives ou quasi exhaustives dans la double dimension
des revenus et des caractéristiques démographiques
et socio-professionnelles des ménages. Nous recommandons
enfin de maintenir une stricte séparation entre les
exercices focalisés seulement sur les effets mécaniques,
qui permettent d’appréhender les effets redistributifs, et
les exercices incorporant en sus des réponses comportementales
qui permettent d’évaluer l’impact budgétaire.
Une prise en compte plus systématique des effets distributifs
et redistributifs de toute mesure de politique économique
lors de sa conception et de sa mise en oeuvre
est éminemment souhaitable, mais aussi analytiquement
délicate. Une voie possible pour faire évoluer la frontière
de la micro-simulation serait de lancer des appels à projet
de recherche, au-delà du champ classique du système
socio-fiscal.
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«
Should We Insure Workers or Jobs During Recession?
»
Prepared for the Journal of Economic Perspectives, with Giulia Giupponi, & Alice Lapeyre
[Abstract]
Abstract: What is the most efficient way to respond to recessions in the labor market?
To this question, policymakers on both sides of the pond gave two diametrically
opposed answers during the recent crisis. In the US, the focus was on insuring
workers, by aggressively increasing the generosity of unemployment insurance
(UI). In Europe, to the contrary, policies were concentrated on saving job matches,
with the massive use of labor hoarding subsidies through short-time-work (STW)
programs, on which so little is actually known. In this article, we try to understand
who got it right. Building on the vast literature on UI and on a recent stream of
papers on STW, we first provide a framework to determine the relative welfare
effects of STW versus UI. We then show that UI offers more insurance value than
STW, but tends to exhibit larger fiscal externalities, due to moral hazard. We finally
focus on how STW and UI affect labor market equilibrium and how this interacts
with inefficiencies in the labor market. We review recent evidence showing that
STW can be an effective way to reduce socially costly layoffs in recessions. Overall,
we conclude that STW is an important and useful addition to the labor market
policy-toolkit during recessions, with strong and positive complementarities with
UI.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES:
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PRE-DOCTORAL FULL-TIME RESEARCH ASSISTANTS, London School of Economics
[Details]
The Public Finance Group of the Economics Dept at the LSE hires every year two or more full-time pre-doctoral research assistants for the academic year.
Applicants should be completing (or have completed) a Bachelor's or Masters degree and have strong quantitative and programming skills. This position is suitable for people looking to obtain experience in economic research for 1 to 2 years before applying to graduate school in economics.
If you are interested, you can send an inquiry email to c.landais@lse.ac.uk. All applications must be submitted
[here]> The next round of applications is live. Please send your applications before Wednesday 8th April 2020 (23.59 UK time)