Research
Work in Progress
Building Capacity in the Public Administration: Evidence from German Reunification (with A. Gumpert)
— Presented at CEPR IMO & ENT, CEPR Public Economics, CESifo Area Conference Public Economics, U of Mannheim, LMU Munich, U Paris Pantheon Sorbonne, and others.
— Grant by the German Research Foundation, Building Fiscal Capacity (FISCAP) (2020-2024, Co-PI, € 695,000)
ABSTRACT: An effective public administration is essential for state capacity and economic prosperity. We study one of the main means to build administrative capacity: seconding officials from high-capacity to low-capacity public administrations. Our context is the capacity-building in the East German tax administration after reunification. Each East German tax office was assigned a partner tax office in West Germany, which was responsible for the capacity-building measures. This unique feature of our setting generates variation in capacity-building that is exogenous to the situation and needs of the East German tax offices. Leveraging this variation, we provide the first causal estimates of the short- and long-term effects of secondments on tax office performance. We assess tax office performance along two dimensions: output quantity and output quality. Our findings show that secondments increased short-term output quantity and had positive effects on long-term output quality. Effect heterogeneity is consistent with successful knowledge transfer as main mechanism behind successful capacity building.What is Fair? Experimental Evidence on Fair Equality vs Fair Inequality (with I. Sjursen, J. Vietz), CESifo Working Paper No. 11289 and CEPR Discussion Paper No. 19472.
Reducing Survivor Pension to Promote More Equal Labor Market Attachment of Women: Evidence from Sweden
(with J. Kochems, M. Nybom, S. Siegloch)Successful Advances in Fiscal ARchiItecture (SAFARI): Evidence from a new tax in Zanzibar
— Grant by the Research Council of Norway (2021–2025, € 1.1 million)
Selected Publications
Shaming for Tax Enforcement
with L. Treber, Management Science, 68(11), 7793-8514, 2022. 
Water the Flowers You Want to Grow: Evidence on Private Recognition and Charity Loyalty
with B. Bittschi and J. Rincke, European Economic Review, 131, 103624, 2021.
Settlement location shapes the integration of forced migrants: Evidence from post-war Germany
with S. Braun, Explorations in Economic History, 77, 101330, 2020.
Firms’ Financial and Real Responses to Credit Supply Shocks: Evidence from Firm-Bank Relationships in Germany
with F. Fossen and M. Simmler, Journal of Financial Intermediation, 41, 100773, 2020.
Flipping a Coin: Evidence from University Applications
with D. Kübler and G. Weizsäcker, Journal of Public Economics, 167, 240–250, 2018.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations for Tax Compliance: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Germany
with H. Kleven, I. Rasul and J. Rincke, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 8(3), 203–232, 2016.
Do Norms on Contribution Behavior Affect Intrinsic Motivation? Field-Experimental Evidence from Germany
with P. Boyer and J. Rincke, Journal of Public Economics 144, 140–153, 2016.
More Publications...
with T. Lohse, Journal of Economic Psychology, 71, 74-87, 2019.
Sharing the Burden: Empirical Evidence on Corporate Tax Incidence
with P. Rattenhuber and V. Steiner, German Economic Review, 20, e107-e140, 2019.
Implementing Quotas in University Admissions: An Experimental Analysis
with S. Braun, D. Kübler and A. Westkamp, Games and Economic Behavior 85, 232–251, 2014.
Financial Leverage and Corporate Taxation. Evidence from German Corporate Tax Return Data
with V. Steiner, International Tax and Public Finance 21(1), 1–28, 2014 (lead article).
User Cost Elasticity of Capital Revisited
Economia 81, 161–186, 2014.
Debt and Equity in Domestic and International Tax Law. A Comparative Policy Analysis
with W. Schön et al., British Tax Review 2, 146–217, 2014.
Do Tuition Fees Affect the Mobility of University Applicants? Evidence from a Natural Experiment
with J. Storck and K. Wrohlich, Economics of Education Review 31(1), 155–167, 2012.
Profit Taxation and the Elasticity of the Corporate Income Tax Base. Evidence from German Corporate Tax Return Data
with V. Steiner, National Tax Journal 65(1), 117–150, 2012.
Telling the Truth May Not Pay Off: An Empirical Study of Centralized University Admissions in Germany
with S. Braun and D. Kübler, B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy (Advanced tiers) 10(1), Article 22, 2010.
Die kurzfristigen Steuereffekte der “Thesaurierungsbegünstigung” – eine mikrofundierte Analyse
with M. Broer, Betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung und Praxis 4, 422–437, 2009.
Success in the University Admission Process in Germany: Regional Provenance Matters?
with S. Braun, Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Educational Planning 58(1), 71–80, 2009.