Correcting vs. Preventing the Gender Pension Gap. Job Market Paper.

Gender gaps in lifetime earnings and employment translate into substantial disparities in pension benefits. This paper studies two policy approaches to reducing the gender pension gap: preventing future gaps through subsidized childcare and correcting existing gaps through pension credits for unpaid care work. Using Norwegian administrative data, I compare the long-run effects of expanding subsidized childcare and a retroactive extension of childcare-related pension credits. The childcare expansion had limited short-run employment effects but generated larger cumulative gains upon retirement. Despite the increase in lifetime earnings, I find no evidence of an earlier claiming age. Finally, I find positive fiscal externalities of the policy through higher tax revenue. On the other hand, childcare-related pension credits increased annual pension benefits by 2.1 percent on average. I find small effects on retirement and increased disability insurance take-up among cohorts not yet eligible to retire at the time of treatment. The comparison highlights the trade-offs between correcting and preventing gender inequality and informs the welfare evaluation of policies targeting gender gaps over the life cycle.

Social Security Reform and Labor Formalization: Evidence from Domestic Workers in Spain. Joint with Alejandro Iribas.

Can public policy increase the formalization of labor and simultaneously improve working conditions in the formal sector? This paper studies the effects of the 2012 Spanish social security reform targeting domestic workers. The reform combined higher worker protection with lower minimum employer contributions. We find that the reform cut the informality rate by half in only six years, but it substantially reduced social security contributions per worker, including among pre-reform formal employees. Total employment and annual earnings in the sector declined gradually. Our results highlight the potential of tax-based incentives for increasing formalization at the cost of reduced benefit accrual.  Draft [Submitted] .

Careers to Carers? Pension Policy and Mother's Economic Outcomes. Joint with Eppie van Egeraat.

We use a policy that increased pension wealth for low-earnings mothers up to 6 years after giving birth in Norway to study the response of maternal labor supply in response to higher future income. This policy allows us to explore the trade-off between acknowledging unpaid care work in pension systems and disincentivizing labor supply of working-age mothers, which may in fact broaden the gender gap in pensions. We implement a regression discontinuity difference-in-differences (RD-DD) design to consider the impact of childcare-related pension credits on labor market outcomes up to 16 years after birth. We do not find any reductions in employment, earnings, nor take-up of other benefits as a result of the policy. This suggests that pension credits can narrow the gender pension gap with no or very small distortionary effects when applied early enough. 

The Price of Simplicity: Evidence from Norway's Tax Scheme for Migrant Workers. Joint with Ana Bottega.

This paper studies how administrative tax simplification affects tax burdens and behavior among recent migrants, exploiting Norway’s 2019 introduction of the Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) scheme. PAYE allows eligible foreign workers to opt into a flat 25 percent withholding tax that eliminates filing requirements and deductions. Using population-wide administrative data and simulated counterfactual tax liabilities under the ordinary progressive system, we examine how PAYE alters effective tax rates and short-run outcomes. The reform strongly compresses the distribution of effective tax rates, generating a mass point at the statutory rate. This compression is asymmetric: many low- and middle-income migrants pay more under PAYE, increasing average effective tax rates by about 2.25 percentage points. Interpreting excess payments as the price of administrative simplicity, we show that many participants overpay by meaningful amounts. A regression discontinuity design reveals sharp tax differences but small short-run effects on labor market or financial outcomes. 

The role of firms in early retirement decisions. Joint with Andreas Haller and Julian Vedeler Johnsen.

Before the start of my PhD, I also contributed to the following OECD publications: