My research focuses on issues surrounding political economy and comparative politics. I am interested in political conflict about the distribution of income and wealth. All my research projects are connected to this theme in one way or another.
Policy preferences
In my dissertation, I research public opinion on redistribution and the welfare state. I assess to what extent policy preferences can be explained by both egotropic and sociotropic motivations. My SER article and PRX article show that the extent of unfair inequality and fairness perceptions explain policy preferences. Using a bounded rationality framework, my WEP article and SER article show that income and unemployment matter as well, while questioning the impact of workers’ labor market risk exposure. Further work in progress explores the moderating role of countries’ quality of government.
Welfare policies and politics
Together with Frank Bandau, I research issues surrounding the welfare state and its politics. Our JESP article offers a systematic review of the literature on partisan effects to the welfare state. In our JEPP article, we explore whether changing the welfare state has electoral consequences for government parties. We find that this is not even the case under favorable conditions, such as a left government party in office.
International tax cooperation
At the COFFERS project, I analyzed the economic and political implications of automatic exchange of tax-related information (AEI) between countries under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Together with colleagues, I show that AEI was effective in combating tax evasion in my NPE and R&G articles. Our SER article shows that AEI allowed governments to increase tax rates on capital income again, if they so wished. See also our discussion with Reuven Avi-Yonah, Steven Dean and Cees Peters in Intertax.