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. Draft.

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. Draft.

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

This paper studies Norway's 2019 Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) scheme, which automatically enrolls newly arrived foreign workers in a flat 25% final withholding tax that eliminates filing and deductions. Opting out of PAYE to the ordinary progressive system requires action. Using population-wide administrative data and simulated counterfactuals, we show the scheme raises effective tax rates by about 2.25 percentage points on average and does so regressively: higher earners stay when the flat rate lowers their liability, while lower- and middle-income migrants pay for the simplicity. A regression discontinuity design at the eligibility cutoff puts the causal effect at 1.7 percentage points, twice as large for women as for men. It persists at 1.2 points three to five years after the scheme lapses, along with NOK 25,000 less in annual transfers, with no effect on employment, earnings, or migration. Draft.

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