Gabriel Zucman, Clark Medalist 2023
https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/honors-awards/bates-clark/gabriel-zucman
Gabriel Zucman has made fundamental contributions to the field of public economics. He is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on tax evasion, both at the household and at the corporate level, and a major contributor to the literature on measuring and explaining the rise in economic inequality. This research provides key insights that inform policy debates on the practical design of tax systems around the world.
Zucman's research provides some of the best evidence on the importance of tax evasion, pushing the economics profession to appreciate that this phenomenon is more important than previously thought. "Tax Evasion and Inequality," (American Economic Review, 2019, with Annette Alstadsæter and Niels Johannesen) uses new micro-data from recent leaks from offshore financial entities (The "Panama Papers" and HSBC "Swiss Leaks") and tax amnesties, merged with administrative income and wealth records in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, to estimate the impact of tax evasion on measured wealth inequality in these Scandinavian countries. Overall, top wealth shares increase substantially when offshore wealth is included, because those at the top of the distribution engage much more actively in evasion. The authors estimate that the richest 0.01 percent of households evade about 25 percent of their taxes, in contrast with conventional audits that suggest evasion rates fall below 5 percent across the wealth distribution.
https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/honors-awards/bates-clark/gabriel-zucman
Gabriel Zucman has made fundamental contributions to the field of public economics. He is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on tax evasion, both at the household and at the corporate level, and a major contributor to the literature on measuring and explaining the rise in economic inequality. This research provides key insights that inform policy debates on the practical design of tax systems around the world.
Zucman's research provides some of the best evidence on the importance of tax evasion, pushing the economics profession to appreciate that this phenomenon is more important than previously thought. "Tax Evasion and Inequality," (American Economic Review, 2019, with Annette Alstadsæter and Niels Johannesen) uses new micro-data from recent leaks from offshore financial entities (The "Panama Papers" and HSBC "Swiss Leaks") and tax amnesties, merged with administrative income and wealth records in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, to estimate the impact of tax evasion on measured wealth inequality in these Scandinavian countries. Overall, top wealth shares increase substantially when offshore wealth is included, because those at the top of the distribution engage much more actively in evasion. The authors estimate that the richest 0.01 percent of households evade about 25 percent of their taxes, in contrast with conventional audits that suggest evasion rates fall below 5 percent across the wealth distribution.