Prof. Florian Scheuer

UBS Foundation Professor of Economics of Institutions

Discover Prof. Florian Scheuer on

Florian Scheuer received his PhD from MIT in 2010. He is interested in the policy implications of rising inequality, with a focus on tax policy. In particular, he has worked on incorporating important features of real-world labor markets into the design of optimal income and wealth taxes. These include economies with rent-seeking, superstar effects or an important entrepreneurial sector, frictional financial markets, as well as political constraints on tax policy and the resulting inequality. His work has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies, among other journals. In 2017, he received an ERC starting grant for his research on “Inequality - Public Policy and Political Economy.” Before joining Zurich, he was on the faculty at Stanford, held visiting positions at Harvard and UC Berkeley and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is Co-Editor of Theoretical Economics and Member of the Board of Editors of the Review of Economic Studies. He is also a Co-Director of the working group on Macro Public Finance at the NBER. He has commented on tax policy in various US and Swiss media outlets.

Interests

Macroeconomics, Political Economy, Public Economics, Economics of Institutions

UBS Foundation Professor of Economics of Institutions

Prof. Florian Scheuer

Discover Prof. Florian Scheuer on

Florian Scheuer received his PhD from MIT in 2010. He is interested in the policy implications of rising inequality, with a focus on tax policy. In particular, he has worked on incorporating important features of real-world labor markets into the design of optimal income and wealth taxes. These include economies with rent-seeking, superstar effects or an important entrepreneurial sector, frictional financial markets, as well as political constraints on tax policy and the resulting inequality. His work has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies, among other journals. In 2017, he received an ERC starting grant for his research on “Inequality - Public Policy and Political Economy.” Before joining Zurich, he was on the faculty at Stanford, held visiting positions at Harvard and UC Berkeley and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is Co-Editor of Theoretical Economics and Member of the Board of Editors of the Review of Economic Studies. He is also a Co-Director of the working group on Macro Public Finance at the NBER. He has commented on tax policy in various US and Swiss media outlets.

Interests

Macroeconomics, Political Economy, Public Economics, Economics of Institutions

Selected publications

  • Taxing the superrich UBS Center Public Paper No.9 2020 download

  • Signaling to Experts with Pablo Kurlat, The Review of Economic Studies forthcoming learn

  • Taxation and the Superrich with Joel Slemrod, Annual Review of Economics Vol. 12:189-211 (2020) download

  • How Initial Conditions Can Have Permanent Effects: The Case of the Affordable Care Act with Kent Smetters, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 10 (2018), 302-343 download

  • The Taxation of Superstars with Iván Werning, Quarterly Journal of Economics 132 (2017), 211-270 download

Research

Florian Scheuer’s most recent research investigates the policy implications of rising income and wealth inequality, with a focus on tax policy. For instance, he has examined the determinants of top incomes, such as the top one percent, whose share of total income has rapidly expanded over the past decades in several developed countries. Many observers have argued that superstar effects have played an important role in this trend, fueled by skill-biased technological progress and globalization. Scheuer has shown that, even though superstar phenomena increase top income inequality, they do not necessarily provide a force for higher top marginal tax rates, since they also imply a greater taxable income elasticity of top earners.

Another frequently raised concern has been that some top incomes, rather than contributing to total economic output, have been earned at the expense of other workers. Scheuer has developed models to examine income taxation in the presence of such rent-seeking activities, and to quantify their importance. In other recent work, he has incorporated further important, real-world features of labor markets into the design of optimal income and wealth taxes, including worker sorting into different occupations, economies with an important entrepreneurial sector, as well as political constraints on tax policy in times of rising inequality.

Apart from tax policy, Florian Scheuer has been interested more broadly in the functioning of markets and the design of welfare-improving government interventions in case of market failures. For example, he has studied equilibria in insurance and financial markets with important frictions such as adverse selection or aggregate risk. A common motivation for his work is to identify pressing societal challenges and use rigorous economic analysis to inject scientific objectivity into the—often times heated—public debate about policy responses.

Florian Scheuer’s most recent research investigates the policy implications of rising income and wealth inequality, with a focus on tax policy. For instance, he has examined the determinants of top incomes, such as the top one percent, whose share of total income has rapidly expanded over the past decades in several developed countries. Many observers have argued that superstar effects have played an important role in this trend, fueled by skill-biased technological progress and globalization. Scheuer has shown that, even though superstar phenomena increase top income inequality, they do not necessarily provide a force for higher top marginal tax rates, since they also imply a greater taxable income elasticity of top earners.

Another frequently raised concern has been that some top incomes, rather than contributing to total economic output, have been earned at the expense of other workers. Scheuer has developed models to examine income taxation in the presence of such rent-seeking activities, and to quantify their importance. In other recent work, he has incorporated further important, real-world features of labor markets into the design of optimal income and wealth taxes, including worker sorting into different occupations, economies with an important entrepreneurial sector, as well as political constraints on tax policy in times of rising inequality.

Florian Scheuer on Google Scholarbrowse

Videos

In the media

  • Why is Switzerland home to so many billionaires? CNBC International Report from 5.2.2024 watch

  • Mehr Ungleichheit im Sozialstaat AWP Soziale Sicherheit Interview mit Florian Scheuer 27.08.2021 lesen

  • Vermögen in der Schweiz ist doppelt so hoch wie vor 20 Jahren Der Bund vom 31.5.2021 lesen

  • Covid verstärkt wirtschaftliche Ungleichheiten SRF Eco Beitrag mit Florian Scheuer 22.02.2021 sehen

  • Wenn die Reichen reicher und die Armen ärmer werden SRF Beitrag mit Florian Scheuer 10.01.2021 lesen/hören

  • «Die Erbschaftsteuer müsste viel beliebter sein» Die Zeit Interview mit Florian Scheuer vom 9.11.2020 lesen

  • Braucht die Schweiz einen zweiten Shutdown? SRF Echo der Zeit mit Florian Scheuer vom 6.11.2020 hören

  • Besteuerung der Superreichen: «In der Schweiz geht es erstaunlich fair zu» NZZ Interview vom 20.11.2019 lesen

  • Welche Steuer für Amazon, Apple und Google? SRF Echo der Zeit vom 13.5.2019 (in German) listen

  • Talk im Turm: Geld und Geist UZH News vom 17.4.2018 (in German) read

  • Florian Scheuer Explores whether top salaries are of benefit to the poorest Science stories by EU Grants Access vom 1.11.2018 read

Quotes

Die strenge Regulierung des Schweizer Immobilienmarkts hat dazu geführt, dass sich immer weniger Personen ein Eigenheim leisten können.
AWP Soziale Sicherheit, 27.8.2021
Wir wissen aus Studien, dass die Pandemie nicht nur die Einkommensungleichheit verstärkt hat, sondern auch die Vermögensverteilung.
Der Bund, 31.5.2021
Letztes Jahr war in der Tat ein gutes Jahr für die Spitzenvermögen. Das US-Magazin Bloomberg hat ausgerechnet, dass alleine die fünfhundert reichsten Milliardäre der Welt ihr Vermögen letztes Jahr um 5% steigern konnten.
SRF Eco, 22.02.2021
Die Vermögensungleichheit am ganz oberen Ende hat in den letzten Jahren massiv zugenommen. Das hat sich dieses Jahr fortgesetzt, weil sie mit ihren Unternehmen von der Pandemie wenig betroffen waren.
SRF Rendez-vous, 10.01.2021
Jetzt, wo das Virus wütet, vollziehen die Menschen von sich aus Verhaltensänderungen, die der Wirtschaft schaden.
Echo der Zeit, 6.11.2020
Many developed countries have seen a dramatic increase in inequality in the past decades. We have made great progress in empirically documenting these trends, but the open question is: Which policy responses does this trend need? This includes tax policy, which has always taken the center stage in the public policy debate, and which I have focused on in much of my past research. 
We find that the critical question to ask is whether top earners are benefiting at the expense of others, and if so, at whose expense.

Interviews and features

2018

2017

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