Photo: Jonne Renvall
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Tampere University and the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research. My research interests are in economic inequality, demographic economics, and macroeconomics.
Working papers
Population Aging, Cohort Replacement, and the Evolution of Income Inequality in the United States (with Matthias Schief) [Latest version]
This paper examines the impact of demographic change on household income inequality in the United States, both historically and prospectively. We emphasize the distinct roles of population aging and cohort replacement and develop a methodology to study their joint compositional effect. We document that cohorts born later in the 20th century embody higher levels of income inequality compared to earlier-born cohorts, and we argue that most of the increase in inequality over the past two decades can be accounted for by demographic change. Moreover, we predict that future demographic change will continue to put significant upward pressure on household income inequality in the United States.
Subgroup Decomposition of the Gini Coefficient: A New Solution to an Old Problem (with Matthias Schief) [Latest version] [FIT Working Paper] [Stata command]
Conditionally accepted at Econometrica
We derive a novel decomposition of the Gini coefficient into within and between-group inequality terms that sum to the aggregate Gini coefficient. This decomposition is derived from a set of axioms that ensure desirable behavior for the within and between-group inequality terms. The decomposition of the Gini coefficient is unique given our axioms, easy to compute, and can be interpreted geometrically.
Work in progress
On the Determinacy of Equilibrium in a Continuous-time Overlapping Generations Model
Re-evaluating the Effect of the Finnish Comprehensive School Reform on Intergenerational Mobility (with Andrea Albanese and Stefano Lombardi)
Tight Bounds for the Gini Coefficient of Composite Populations (with Matthias Schief)
Optimal Transport and the Measurement of Inequality (with Tommaso Coen and Matthias Schief)