Skatteforsk – Norwegian Centre for Tax Research welcomes Raysa Lizarraga as a new postdoc. She defended her PhD at BI Norwegian Business School on 14 August and started at Skatteforsk on 1 October.
Raysa's path towards becoming an economist at Skatteforsk started back when she was doing her bachelor's degree in economics at Universidad Nacional del Callao in her native Peru. Development economics, inequality dynamics and research that makes a positive difference drew her in. Her PhD thesis, Inequality in Motion: Income dynamics, business wealth measurement and human capital transmission, brings that focus to Norway.
— Growing up in a developing country, Norway can seem like a strong welfare state, almost a utopia. A lot of things work well, but as you look closer, you still see patterns of disproportionate income and wealth inequality. I wanted to investigate what could drive these inequalities in a country often held up as an example of a model of economic redistribution, says Raysa.
The question is harder than it looks. Much of the research on inequality focuses on the US, where financial constraints, unequal access to education, and the influence of parents on economic opportunities may play important roles. However, Norway has no comparable financial barriers to higher education, so those explanations only go so far.
What the thesis found
One key finding is that the way we measure things can change the results. The chapters look at how top income inequality can emerge from an income process and how economic advantage can persist across generations.
For Raysa, the thesis work is a foundation for thinking about tax policy and public economics. In particular, understanding how income and wealth are distributed, and how that changes over time, can have direct implications for policy and taxation.
Luxury cars and cryptocurrency
In Skatteforsk, Raysa is already working on two projects.
One of the projects, in collaboration with Annette Alstadsæter, Jakob Brounstein, and Naomi Feldman, pertains to luxury consumption and tax evasion. The project aims to identify potential income underreporting by comparing reported income with spending. If someone buys very expensive cars while reporting low income, that gap points to underreporting.
Raysa’s other project has to do with cryptocurrency windfalls and labor supply responses, and is being conducted with Andreas Økland, who was recently appointed associate professor at Skatteforsk, and Dinara Alpysbayeva.
Individual crypto holders generally have little or no influence over market prices, so price swings are usually outside their control. These fluctuations can provide a useful opportunity to study how people adjust their work in response to sudden changes in wealth.
— Skatteforsk excites me because of its focus on research that has impact. I see it as a place where I can continue to develop my research while working on questions that can actually improve society.