Prof. Dina Pomeranz

UBS Foundation Assistant Professor of Applied Economics

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Dina Pomeranz received her PhD from Harvard in 2010. Prior to joining the University of Zurich, she was an assistant professor at Harvard Business School and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT's Poverty Action Lab. Her research focuses on developing countries, in particular on public finance, taxation, public procurement and firm development. Taking state-capacity research to the field, she works closely with the governments in Chile, Ecuador and Kenya to analyze strategies to strengthen public finance capabilities, and measure the impacts on government agencies, citizens and firms. Her work has been published in academic journals including the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal - Applied Economics, and the Journal of Economic Development. In 2017, she was awarded one of the highly competitive ERC Starting Grants for her research on tax evasion and the role of firm networks. In 2018, she received the Excellence Prize in Applied Development Research of the “Verein für Socialpolitik”, was named as one of the top 10 most influential economists in Switzerland by a consortium of Swiss newspapers and was elected to the Council of the European Economic Association for a 5-year term.

Interests

Political Economy, Public Economics, Economics of Institutions, Development Economics

UBS Foundation Assistant Professor of Applied Economics

Prof. Dina Pomeranz

Discover Prof. Dina Pomeranz on

Dina Pomeranz received her PhD from Harvard in 2010. Prior to joining the University of Zurich, she was an assistant professor at Harvard Business School and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT's Poverty Action Lab. Her research focuses on developing countries, in particular on public finance, taxation, public procurement and firm development. Taking state-capacity research to the field, she works closely with the governments in Chile, Ecuador and Kenya to analyze strategies to strengthen public finance capabilities, and measure the impacts on government agencies, citizens and firms. Her work has been published in academic journals including the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal - Applied Economics, and the Journal of Economic Development. In 2017, she was awarded one of the highly competitive ERC Starting Grants for her research on tax evasion and the role of firm networks. In 2018, she received the Excellence Prize in Applied Development Research of the “Verein für Socialpolitik”, was named as one of the top 10 most influential economists in Switzerland by a consortium of Swiss newspapers and was elected to the Council of the European Economic Association for a 5-year term.

Interests

Political Economy, Public Economics, Economics of Institutions, Development Economics

Selected publications

  • Imports, Exports, and Earnings Inequality: Measures of Exposure and Estimates of Incidence with Rodrigo Adão, Paul Carrillo, Arnaud Costinot, Dave Donaldson, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2022 download

  • Raising money for the state UBS Center Policy Brief 2019 download

  • Challenges of Monitoring Tax Compliance by Multinational Firms: Evidence from Chile with Sebastian Bustos, José Vila-Belda and Gabriel Zucman, AEA Papers and Proceedings 2019 download

  • Taking State-Capacity Research to the Field: Insights from Collaborations with Tax Authorities with José Vila-Belda, Annual Review of Economics 2019 download

  • Dodging the Taxman: Firm Misreporting and Limits to Tax Enforcement with Paul Carrillo, and Monica Singhal, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2017 download

Research

Dina Pomeranz’s research focuses on developing countries, in particular on public finance, taxation, public procurement and firm development. Pushing the boundaries of empirical public finance research, she works closely with the governments in Chile, Ecuador and Kenya to analyze strategies to strengthen state capacity, and measure the impacts on government agencies, citizens and firms. In her work, she employs both randomized field experiments and retrospective empirical methods to demonstrate causal impacts using administrative data. Her work on taxation demonstrates the key role of information and of technology for tax enforcement, for example in the Value Added Tax. At the same time, her work also documents how the effectiveness of information can be limited in the face of enforcement constraints or when tax payers can shift their evasion to other, less monitored margins. In ongoing work, she studies the effectiveness of international policies to curb profit shifting by multinational firms. Her work on taxation has important implications for both countries’ choice of tax instruments and for tax administration policies to help low- and middle-income countries to increase their domestic resource mobilization. In recent work on public procurement, Pomeranz studies how inefficient audit design can have severe implications for the efficiency and fairness of the public procurement system. By failing to take bureaucrat incentives into account, audits can inadvertently distort the process towards less transparent and less competitive forms of procurement. In ongoing work, she uses detailed administrative tax data to study firm networks. Using this novel data allows her to shed light on key questions of firm development, in particular on firm-size dependent distortions, and on the impact of international trade on inequality across the economy.

Dina Pomeranz’s research focuses on developing countries, in particular on public finance, taxation, public procurement and firm development. Pushing the boundaries of empirical public finance research, she works closely with the governments in Chile, Ecuador and Kenya to analyze strategies to strengthen state capacity, and measure the impacts on government agencies, citizens and firms. In her work, she employs both randomized field experiments and retrospective empirical methods to demonstrate causal impacts using administrative data. Her work on taxation demonstrates the key role of information and of technology for tax enforcement, for example in the Value Added Tax. At the same time, her work also documents how the effectiveness of information can be limited in the face of enforcement constraints or when tax payers can shift their evasion to other, less monitored margins. In ongoing work, she studies the effectiveness of international policies to curb profit shifting by multinational firms. Her work on taxation has important implications for both countries’ choice of tax instruments and for tax administration policies to help low- and middle-income countries to increase their domestic resource mobilization. In recent work on public procurement, Pomeranz studies how inefficient audit design can have severe implications for the efficiency and fairness of the public procurement system. By failing to take bureaucrat incentives into account, audits can inadvertently distort the process towards less transparent and less competitive forms of procurement. In ongoing work, she uses detailed administrative tax data to study firm networks. Using this novel data allows her to shed light on key questions of firm development, in particular on firm-size dependent distortions, and on the impact of international trade on inequality across the economy.

Dina Pomeranz on Google Scholarbrowse

Videos

In the media

  • Wie steht es um die Schweizer Entwicklungshilfe? Die Volkswirtschaft Interview vom 8.4.2024 lesen

  • Entwicklungshilfe erzielt klare und überprüfbare Effekte NZZ Gastkommentar vom 27.3.2024 lesen

  • Mehr arbeiten, damit die Zuwanderung sinkt? Dank neuem Steuerbonus soll sich Vollzeit wieder lohnen NZZ Artikel vom 2.11.2023 lesen

  • In vielen Ländern profitieren nur die Berater von der OECD-Steuerreform Tages-Anzeiger Artikel vom 25.9.2023 lesen

  • «Es ist nicht die Zeit zum Sparen» Luzernerzeitung Interview mit Dina Pomeranz vom 27.10.2020 lesen

  • Corona-Pandemie: Appelle zur Eigenverantwortung reichen nicht SRF Tagesschau mit Dina Pomeranz vom 26.10.2020 schauen

  • Professorin: «Mit oder ohne Lockdown – der Schaden ist gross» SRF Interview mit Dina Pomeranz vom 24.10.2020 lesen und hören

  • Eine interessante Wendung Die Weltwoche Portrait von Dina Pomeranz vom 6.5.2020 lesen, Paywall

  • «Es darf niemand durch die Maschen fallen» Tachles Interview mit Dina Pomeranz vom 3.4.2020 lesen

  • Der diesjährige Wirtschaftsnobelpreis ehrt eine Ökonomie, die anpackt NZZ Würdigung vom 19.10.2019 lesen

  • Empirische Revolution in der Verwaltung Die Volkswirtschaft Aufsatz vom 20.09.2019 lesen

  • Working with administrative tax data: A how-to-get-started guide Worldbank blogs from March 21, 2019 read

  • Die zehn einflussreichsten Schweizer Ökonomen Tagesanzeiger vom 29.12.2018 lesen

  • Dodging the taxman: Evidence from Ecuador VoxDev from August 29, 2017 read

Quotes

Der wirtschaftliche Schaden mit oder ohne Lockdown (...) ist sehr ähnlich. Aber ohne Lockdown sind die Erkrankungen viel schlimmer.
SRF Echo der Zeit, 24.10.2020
Die Frage, wie viel Steuern der Staat erhalten soll, ist eine separate Thematik von der Steuerhinterziehung. Ungeachtet der Staatsquote kann Steuerhinterziehung zu grossen Verzerrungen führen zwischen wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten.
Weltwoche, 6.5.2020
Für ärmere Länder ist die Situation viel herausfordernder. In reicheren Ländern wie der Schweiz haben wir viel mehr Ressourcen, von denen wir zehren können, auch wenn es wirtschaftlich einmal nicht so rund läuft.
Tachles, 3.4.2020
In my research, there were many people in the development economics community that inspired me and got me excited about the potential impact that this research can make.

Interviews and features

2016

Images

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