Zach Liscow

NEW PAPER! (w/ Fox & Love): How to tax business?
1. Corporations are now taxed more efficiently than ever.
2. Partnerships hold >$30T in assets, yet audit rates for large ones have collapsed to 0.27% because of complexity.

➔ Time to shift back to corporate taxation?

Summary: tinyurl.com/376vuztu

Now out @jpube.bsky.social:

-Unrealized gains = 40% of “economic income” for top 1% (29% adjusted for inflation)
-Borrowing is just 1-2% of econ income for them
-Super rich “buy, save, die," not “buy, borrow, die” - they don't need to borrow to consume

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Attention good government, infrastructure, abundance, and state capacity nerds: here's a terrific new paper on how we arrived at one particularly ineffective (though good-sounding) practice -- lowest-cost bidding -- and what to do about it.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Students Take a Deep Dive into Connecticut Policymaking A new course taught by Professor Zachary Liscow uses Connecticut as a case study for understanding how state government can work more effectively.

Nice story on a new course I'm teaching on why state & local governments don't work as well as they could - and what can be done, using Connecticut as a case study. We talk about state capacity, proceduralism, participation, politics, abundance, etc.

law.yale.edu/yls-today/ne...

We know state capacity works for roads. So why not apply these lessons to rail? #JustTransitionForCaltrans

Great piece by @davidzipper.bsky.social in @bloomberg.com on my work with Slattery & Nober on state capacity challenges building infrastructure -- and how good government workers can pay for themselves many times over.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

American Roads Are Paved With Inefficiency Why do US highway projects cost so much? A researcher finds some surprising sources of infrastructure inflation, and points to ways to make road work more affordable.

US highway spending is a mess.

Yale prof @zliscow.bsky.social & colleagues found that South Carolina’s DOT spends $375,500 repaving a mile of highway – more than twice as much as North Carolina.

In @bloomberg.com, I spoke with Liscow about the wild inefficiencies of state DOTs.

Connecticut is going to spend $1 billion on a moveable bridge to serve *one* boat that goes up and down the river.

The Army Corps of Engineers was inflexible on this issue despite the cost bloat. Should be a go to example for “marble cake federalism.”

By @zliscow.bsky.social interviewed by Ruiz

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't realized that. So I just put up a version with the appendix on SSRN: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

On Sep 24 (Wednesday), Ed Fox (Michigan), Zach Liscow (Yale) and Michael Love (Columbia), will present the draft paper, “Corporate vs. Pass Through Taxation: the Role of Economic Rents and Legibility”, at the Mizzou Law Tax Policy Colloquium, from 2:00 to 3:15 pm Central Time. 1/

Reforming permitting to build infrastructure | Brookings This paper proposes legislative actions to reform environmental policy regulations which made building U.S. infrastructure expensive and slow.

🚨New paper! I propose specific actions to reform permitting, balancing a reduction in back-end litigation with more robust and inclusive front-end planning, preserving core values while adapting to modern needs.

www.brookings.edu/articles/ref...

The US has a lot of lawyers per capita, and unsurprisingly it has a lot of lawsuits per capita, which probably matters for our ability to build things. Info by way of @zliscow.bsky.social
pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

What is America’s Infrastructure Cost Problem? “I'm part of the problem”

I had a great time talking with Santi Ruiz @ifp.bsky.social about how to reduce infrastructure costs. Here's the podcast.

www.statecraft.pub/p/what-is-am...

Fantastic talk on cutting transit construction costs and getting lots more great transit with @zliscow.bsky.social, @stephanie-pollack.bsky.social and @egoldwyn.bsky.social at @yimbytown.bsky.social.

Check out our conversation on Densely Speaking with Zach about this research from earlier this year. @gregshill.com

open.spotify.com/episode/6HcN...

This is a really important paper. American infrastructure is expensive because we outsourced the capacity design (or perhaps even bid) effectively.

The implication of the outsourcing of state capacity loom large over this paper. The results are clear but it’s more impactful if you read between the lines

Investing in competence pays off, another result "cost cutting" conservatives don't understand

Hello!

Tl;dr Engineers print money

Wow, this is fantastic.

Rhetorical question: What do we think is going to result from the culling of experienced engineers (and other subject matter experts) at the Fed level too?

Key point for those of us trying to figure out ST3 costs. State capacity is a key piece of the puzzle.

Probably true in Canada and for more than just highways I would reckon

Hmmm, maybe we should hire in-house civil engineers instead of relying on massive multinational consulting firms to do our work for us?

Imagine that!

Nice policy writeup on the piece from the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale: tobin.yale.edu/research/exp...

🚨NEW RESULTS (w/ Slattery & Nober)
- When gov't engineers retire, highway projects cost more: the engineers pay for themselves 6 times over
- Improving gov’t engineer quality from the 25th to 75th percentile reduces costs by 14%, equal to 3x avg. engineer pay

Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy. It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation.

No way to run a railroad
www.wsj.com/economy/cpi-...

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 w/ Elmendorf & Hubbard. We find:
- Growth-enhancing policies almost certainly cannot stabilize federal debt on their own
- But such policies can reduce the tax hikes/spending cuts needed to stabilize debt
- We need more research here

Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....