📣 Don't miss this upcoming guest lecture and Q&A with Prof. Dr. Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB). 🇪🇺
The event will be moderated by @florianscheuer.bsky.social Scheuer.
www.econalumni.ch/events/monet...
@florianscheuer.bsky.social has been featured in a @sfchronicle.com investigation into California's proposed "billionaire tax" — a ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% wealth levy on the state's roughly 200 billionaires
www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...
#EconomicsForSociety
Final call for papers for ESEM 2026!
@florianscheuer.bsky.social and I are the Scientific Program Chairs for Econometric Society European Summer Meetings (ESEM), which will take place in Dublin, August 17–21, 2026. Hope to see you in Dublin!
More info: www.econometricsociety.org/regional-act...
The state of California 🇺🇸 🐻 has been considering introducing a new wealth tax. What can this US state learn from Switzerland 🇨🇭? 👉 A few answers from @florianscheuer.bsky.social
in @sfchronicle.com
www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...
Florian Scheuer
Earlier this week, we had the pleasure of hosting @florianscheuer.bsky.social from @econ.uzh.ch in our seminar series.
He presented “Dilution vs. Risk Taking: Capital Gains Taxes and Entrepreneurship.”
Do you know a leader in public finance?
Nominations are officially OPEN for the 2026 Daniel M. Holland Medal! Help NTA recognize lifetime achievement in our field.
🔹 Open to all sectors
🔹 Deadline is March 31
Nominate here: https://www.cognitoforms.com/NTA1/_2026DanielMHollandMedalNominationForm
Papers on all aspects of macroeconomic policy (monetary, fiscal, growth, financial) will be considered.
Submit here by March 31: szgerzensee.ch/programs/con...
There will be a special issue of the JME in the fall of 2027, more details here: szgerzensee.ch/news/article...
2/2
I'm happy to serve on the Scientific Committee of next fall's Swiss National Bank/Gerzensee/JME Conference on Macroeconomic Policy, together with Marios Angeletos, Harris Dellas and Silvana Tenreyro.
Taking place on October 30-31, 2026, it will be held in honor of Robert Barro.
1/2
Dirk Krueger, @s-stantcheva.bsky.social, Aleh Tsyvinski and I again organize the Macro Public Finance session at @nber.org Summer Institute, taking place on July 23, 2026.
Submit here by March 26: conference.nber.org/confsubmit/b...
@hcbjornland.bsky.social and I are the Scientific Program Chairs for the @econometric.bsky.social European Summer meetings, on August 17-21, 2026 in Dublin.
Keynotes by Nava Ashraf, Raj Chetty, Nobu Kiyotaki and Rohini Pande.
Submit here by February 23:
www.econometricsociety.org/regional-act...
🇨🇭Mit einem Nein-Anteil von 78 Prozent sprach sich die Bevölkerung gegen die Erbschaftssteuer Initiative. "Eine moderate Erbschaftssteuer – ohne Zweckbindung an den Klimaschutz – hätte hier durchaus einen Beitrag leisten können." so @florianscheuer.bsky.social mehr 👇
www.swissinfo.ch/ger/schweize...
Probably more than you ever wanted to know about #inheritance and its #taxation in #Switzerland, but here you go.🤓
Thanks to @florianscheuer.bsky.social and @ubscenter.uzh.ch for hosting me, and to all the viewers for their questions and real-time voting!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAZ7...
More and more wealth is passed down across generations. Yet, many countries have reduced inheritance taxes. What drove this trend? What are the consequences of reversing it?
Don't miss my conversation later today with @mariusbrulhart.bsky.social who knows more about this than anyone else!
We’ve worked on this paper for a long time, so I’m thrilled to finally share it! Here’s the link:
nber.org/papers/w34512
Ungated version: econ.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:27d6...
10/10
However, in the absence of tax credits in case of losses (as would be the case with a wealth tax), there is no such insurance. We're only left with the dilution effect, which is unambiguously bad for founders.
9/10
This provides downside insurance: the share of founders who receive any positive exit payoff increases from 16% to 47%. This insurance is actuarially unfair but still potentially attractive for risk-averse founders.
8/10
The second effect depends on the treatment of capital losses. Most startups see their valuations rise but ultimately fail, so losses are common even when interim gains occur. Taxing unrealized gains makes founders cash out early in return for tax credits in case of losses.
7/10
What happens if you tax unrealized gains?
First, it dilutes the successful founders. On average, founder ownership at exit falls by 25%. At the top, payoffs fall by a factor of three.
6/10
While entrepreneurship is very attractive to risk-neutral founders (equivalent to an annual salary of about $460k), risk-averse founders value it at a steep discount.
5/10
We collect new data on the payoff distribution of founders of VC-backed startups in the US.
It’s extremely skewed: 84% end up with zero exit value, the top 2% get 80% of the total value, and the distribution has a very thick Pareto tail.
4/10
This year’s Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion recently warned against a wealth tax in France: ”Mistral AI [a leading French AI startup] will have to find financiers to pay its taxes instead of being able to fund innovation.”
But we lack both theory and evidence on these effects!
3/10
This question took center stage in the debate over the “Zucman tax” in France and during the last US presidential election (Kamala Harris’s proposal to tax unrealized gains, which was met with strong opposition from the VC community).
2/10
What would taxing unrealized capital gains — or wealth — do to entrepreneurship? If illiquid founders must sell shares to pay such taxes, how does this extra dilution affect incentives?
🧵 on my new paper with Eduardo Azevedo, Kent Smetters & Min Yang
1/10
Join us with @mariusbrulhart.bsky.social and @florianscheuer.bsky.social to learn more about taxing inheritance, highlighting what data and policy experience can tell us about the role of inheritance in modern economies like Switzerland.
www.ubscenter.uzh.ch/en/news_even...
#EconomicsForSociety
Brain drain made in 🇺🇸 und wie🇨🇭davon profitieren könnte.
«An den besten Hochschulen der Ivy League Leute zu rekrutieren, war bisher schwierig», sagt @florianscheuer.bsky.social.
Das habe sich geändert:«Das Interesse, zu uns zu kommen, ist viel grösser geworden.» 👇
www.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonnt...
I'm hiring a Post-Doc @econ.uzh.ch to work with me and my team at the frontier of tax policy and inequality research! Funded by my Consolidator Grant, no teaching, flexible start date and duration. Apply here:
www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....
@erc.europa.eu @snsf.ch
Danke Matthias!
11.10.2025 08:19 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
We are thrilled to welcome Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee as the new Lemann Foundation Professors to our department, beginning in the summer of 2026.
10.10.2025 09:46 — 👍 141 🔁 24 💬 2 📌 19
We will continue to work hard on attracting outstanding economists from around the world to Zurich, including from the U.S., and on raising the resources needed to support them—especially during the current, special times in the international higher education landscape.
7/7
