Youssef Benzarti


​I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Email: youssef.benzarti@gmail.com

​​You can download my CV here.

PUBLICATIONS:

​​"Estimating the Costs of Filing Tax Returns and the Potential Savings from Policies Aimed at Reducing these Costs" September 2020. Tax Policy and the Economy, Forthcoming.

​​​"What Goes Up May Not Come Down: Asymmetric Incidence of Value Added Taxes" with Dorian Carloni (CBO), Jarkko Harju (VATT) and Tuomas Kosonen (LIER). Journal of Political Economy, December 2020. Publisher's link. NBER Working Paper No. 23849. Featured in Les Echos, L'Express, Capital, LCI, Ouest France, BFM, Bloomberg.
​

“How Taxing Is Tax Filing? Using Revealed Preferences to Estimate Compliance Costs” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2020. Publisher's Link. NBER Working Paper No. 23903. Featured in the LA Times, Le Figaro, Time, the Blade, Quartz, NPR, Washington Post, the Economic Report of the President  and the NBER Digest.
​

​"Does Mandating Social Insurance Affect Entrepreneurial Activity?" with Jarkko Harju (VATT) and Tuomas Matikka (VATT). American Economic Review: Insights, June 2020. Publisher's Link. NBER Working Paper No. 25651. Featured in AEA Research Highlights.
​

​"Who Really Benefits From Consumption Tax Cuts? Evidence From a Large VAT Cut in France" with Dorian Carloni (CBO). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2019. Publisher's Link. NBER Working Paper No. 23848. Appendix. ​​Vox Summary, IPP Policy Brief. Featured in Alternatives Economiques, Le Figaro, France 2, France 3, Liberation, AEA Chart of the Week.
​

WORKING PAPERS:

Revised "Do Value-Added Taxes Affect International Trade Flows? Evidence From 30 Years of Tax Reforms" with Alisa Tazhitdinova (UCSB). AEJ: Economic Policy, Revise and Resubmit (2nd round). NBER Working Paper No. 26195. April 2020.
​

​​​New "Using Payroll Tax Variation to Unpack the Black Box of Firm-Level Production" with Jarkko Harju (VATT). Journal of the European Economic Association, Revise and Resubmit. January 2020. NBER Working Paper No. 26640.
​

New "Can Payroll Tax Cuts Help Firms During Recessions?" with Jarkko Harju (VATT). June 2020. NBER Working Paper No. 27485.
​

​​​New "Playing Hide and Seek: How Lenders Respond to Borrower Protection" January 2020. NBER Working Paper No. 26382.
Featured in: NBER Research Spotlight, CardRates.com
​

"Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The Migration Patterns of High-Skilled Workers: Evidence From Alumni Databases." October 2015.