Henrik Kleven
Henrik Jacobsen Kleven (born in Denmark) is a Danish economist who is currently a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. His research lies inside the domain of public finance, in particular questions of tax policy. He combines economic theory and empirical evidence, e.g. in deriving microdata-based estimates of elasticities of taxable income.
Henrik Jacobsen Kleven | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Institution | Princeton University |
| Field | Public economics, public finance |
| Alma mater | University of Copenhagen |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter Birch Sørensen |
| Contributions | Research on tax policy |
Career
Kleven obtained his MS in economics from the University of Copenhagen in 2001 and received his Ph.D. in economics from the same department in 2003. His thesis adviser was Professor Peter Birch Sørensen, and the title of his thesis was Taxation, Time Allocation, and Economic Efficiency.[1] He worked as an Assistant Professor (2002–03) and an Associate Professor (2003–07) at University of Copenhagen , as an Assistant Professor (2007–10) and an Associate Professor (2010–13) at London School of Economics before becoming a Full Professor at LSE 2013-17. From July 2017, he is a Professor at the Department of Economics and Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.[2]
Research
Kleven's research combines empirical evidence and economic theory to show ways of designing more effective public policies. He has authored or co-authored numerous scientific contributions, including articles in the journals Econometrica, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Journal. Among his co-authors are the Danish public finance economists Peter Birch Sørensen and Claus Thustrup Kreiner as well as Gabriel Zucman, Emmanuel Saez, Wojciech Kopczuk, Camille Landais and Joel Slemrod.[2]
A number of Kleven's contributions have been studies based on microdata from Danish administrative registers who yield plenty of opportunity for empirical analyses of the behaviour of individual agents. This is true for several studies of the Danish elasticity of taxable income - a central term in modern economic tax theory, measuring how tax payers' behaviour is affected by tax changes. The paper "Estimating Taxable Income Responses Using Danish Tax Reforms", published in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy in 2014 presents elasticities of taxable labour income of 0.05 for wage earners and 0.1 for self-employed business people, whereas the elasticity of taxable capital income is approximately 2-3 times larger than for labour income. The results are based on estimated effects of four Danish income tax reforms from 1987 to 2005.[3]
One of Kleven's more easily accessible contributions is "How can Scandinavians tax so much?", published in Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2014. Here he attempts to answer a question often asked by American and other foreign researchers visiting Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries: How can the Scandinavian countries present societies with relatively high levels of prosperity and economic efficiency and yet at the same time maintain tax rates which are quite high in an international context? Kleven points to three facts that make the distortions in e.g. the Danish tax system relatively small: the wide-spread use of third-party information reporting, ensuring a low level of tax evasion, broad tax bases, ensuring a low level of tax avoidance, and strong subsidization of goods that are complementary to working, ensuring a high level of labor force participation. He also hypothesizes that social and cultural norms may play a role, in so far as a high general level of trust and social coherence in Scandinavia may be connected with the acceptance of a high tax level.[4]
Other professional activities
From May 2018, Kleven is a Co-Editor of the American Economic Review. 2014-17 he was Chief Editor of the Journal of Public Economics. In 2016, he received the Excellence in Refereeing Award from the American Economic Review.[2] He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, whose Public Economics Program he directed from 2014 to 2017.[2]
References
- Jacobsen, Henrik Kleven (2003). Taxation, Time Allocation, and Economic Efficiency (Ph.D.). University of Copenhagen. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
- Vita. Curriculum Vitae at Kleven's homepage, retrieved on 26 February 2019.
- Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen and Esben Anton Schultz (2014): "Estimating Taxable Income Responses Using Danish Tax Reforms." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(4): 271-301. DOI: 10.1257/pol.6.4.271
- Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen (2014): "How Can Scandinavians Tax So Much?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(4): 77-98. DOI: 10.1257/jep.28.4.77