Matthew C. Weinzierl
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Matt Weinzierl completed his PhD in economics at Harvard University in 2008 and is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. Prior to his doctoral studies, Professor Weinzierl worked in the New York office of McKinsey & Company, specializing in financial services. From 2003 to 2004, he served as the Staff Economist for Macroeconomics on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Matt Weinzierl completed his PhD in economics at Harvard University in 2008 and is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. Prior to his doctoral studies, Professor Weinzierl worked in the New York office of McKinsey & Company, specializing in financial services. From 2003 to 2004, he served as the Staff Economist for Macroeconomics on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Professor Weinzierl’s research focuses on the optimal design of tax policy. In particular, he has written on the potential value of age-dependent taxation, the dynamic feedback effects of tax changes, the use of fiscal policy to counteract recessions, and the impact of differences in beliefs and tastes across individuals on optimal tax design. His research has been published in Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Public Economics, American Economic Journals: Economic Policy, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Journal of Economic Perspectives, and has been discussed in the Economist, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2008, he was selected to participate in the Review of Economic Studies tour. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Professor Weinzierl is married to Coventry Edwards-Pitt, a wealth advisor. Their family lives in the western suburbs of Boston and spends its free time enjoying music, the outdoors, and ice cream.
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Why Do We Tax?
Q&A with Professor Matt Weinzierl
There is a mismatch between what many scholars assume is the purpose of taxes and what most people believe for themselves. That mismatch means that the advice experts offer to policymakers and citizens debating tax policy can sometimes seem to miss the point. We could all benefit from fixing this gap.
In this Q&A with HBS Working Knowledge, Prof. Weinzierl discusses his new research that updates the theory of taxation so that its predictions better match what we see in real-world policy.
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Why Do We Redistribute So Much but Tag So Little?
Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation
The workhorse model of optimal taxation strongly recommends tagging, but its use in policy is limited. I argue that this puzzle is a symptom of a more fundamental problem. Conventional theory neglects the diverse normative criteria with which, as extensive evidence has shown, most people evaluate policy. In particular, if the classic principle of Equal Sacrifice augments the standard Utilitarian criterion, optimal tagging is limited. Calibrated simulations of optimal policy with normative diversity of this type simultaneously match three features of U.S. policy: substantial income redistribution; rejection of gender, race, and height tags; and acceptance of a blindness tag. Additional implications increase the appeal of this revision to conventional theory.
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Innovation Hub: A New Look for the Tax Code
Professor Weinzierl in an in-depth discussion of tax reform and tax priorities with Professor Jon Gruber of MIT and Innovation Hub host Kara Miller.