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.
-
Research Summary
Why Do We Redistribute So Much But Tag So Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation
by
Matthew C. Weinzierl
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 Sacri
ce 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. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-064, 2012 also NBER Working Paper #18045.
-
Research Summary
Equalizing Outcomes vs. Equalizing Opportunities: Optimal Taxation when Children's Abilities Depend on Parents' Resources (with Alexander Gelber)
by
Matthew C. Weinzierl
Micro and macro data suggest that the distribution of resources among families affects children'’s future earnings abilities. As a result, an optimal tax policy will treat future ability distributions as endogenous. In this paper, we analytically characterize how making children'’s abilities a function of parental resources affects optimal tax policy. We also numerically simulate optimal policy in this setting, using evidence on the distribution and heritability of natural abilities and the elasticity of children’'s ability with respect to parental resources to parameterize the model. Preliminary results show that optimal policy raises the earnings abilities of all children relative to a policy that neglects the endogeneity of ability, and that the welfare gains from optimal policy are substantial. Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 13-014, also NBER Working Paper #18332.
-
Research Summary
De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Theory and Evidence on Preference Heterogeneity and Redistribution
by
Matthew C. Weinzierl
Preferences over consumption and leisure play no role in the standard optimal tax model, which attributes all variation in earnings to differences in income-earning ability. We show how to incorporate these preferences, which like ability are publicly unobservable, into the standard model in a tractable way. In this more general model, the policy designer must guess at the relative importance of ability and preferences in explaining variation in earnings. We show that such preferences could, in principle, increase or decrease optimal redistribution. In the most plausible specifications of the model, however, the result is clear: greater variation in preferences lowers the optimal extent of redistribution. To generate more redistribution than in standard results, one must assume that the desire for income is inversely related to income earned. This result holds even when the conventional model accurately describes the average individual, and it suggests one potential resolution to the puzzle of why observed redistribution is in some cases weaker than conventional theory would suggest. We then establish a new empirical finding that confirms this model's central policy prediction across developed countries and U.S. states. In countries and states with more heterogeneous tastes for consumption relative to leisure, redistribution is statistically significantly lower. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-063, 2012, also NBER Working Paper #17784.
|
|