Felipe Lobel

Felipe Lobel headshot

Felipe Lobel

Felipe Lobel headshot
I am a public economist. My research combines theory and large administrative datasets to gain insight into economic behavior and inform public policy discourse on issues of business taxation and inequality. I completed my PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley.
Columbia University, Postdoctoral Fellow (2024-2025)
Stanford University, Postdoctoral Fellow (2025-2026)
Duke University, Assistant Professor of Economics (2026-)

Publications

applied micro

Corporate Taxation and Evasion Responses: Evidence from a Minimum Tax in Honduras

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , 2024

Award: ITAX Best PhD Student Paper Award

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Abstract: We study corporate responses to a minimum income tax, using the universe of corporate tax filings in Honduras. The policy design allows us to separately estimate cost misreporting under profit taxation and the elasticity of reported revenue. Large corporations overreport true costs when taxed on profits. Taxing revenue leads to a substantial decrease in reported revenues: we estimate an elasticity in the range 0.35-1. The elasticity of revenue is attenuated when third-party information on the revenue of firms is available, suggesting misreporting plays an important role. Our results inform trade-offs when broadening tax bases to curb evasion.

theory

Intra-household Inequality and the Joint Taxation of Household Earnings

Journal of Public Economics , 2024

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Abstract: We derive the optimal joint-income tax schedule for couples, focusing on the distinction between interpersonal and inter-household inequality. Households are composed of two spouses with possibly unequal access to the family’s economic resources. Individual-oriented utilitarianism typically leads to a misalignment between the households’ and the government’s objectives, a phenomenon termed dissonance by Apps and Rees (1988). The traditional ABC formula must be amended by including a Pigouvian term to correct for dissonance. Under general conditions, the effect of dissonance on marginal taxes is ambiguous; its sign depends on whether the less powerful spouse’s marginal contribution to household earnings is less than, or greater than, her marginal entitlement to household consumption. Assuming identical iso-elastic preferences, the multidimensional heterogeneity collapses into a single-dimensional index, preserving the single-crossing property. This simplification enables us to solve Mirrlees (1971)’s multidimensional program and quantitatively assess the size and sign of the Pigouvian term, which is positive across all income levels, leading to higher marginal tax rates.

experimental

Reducing Interference Bias in Online Marketplace Experiments Using Cluster Randomization: Evidence from a Pricing Meta-Experiment on Airbnb

Management Science , 2024

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Abstract: Online marketplace designers frequently run randomized experiments to measure the impact of proposed product changes. However, given that marketplaces are inherently connected, total average treatment effect (TATE) estimates obtained through individual-level randomized experiments may be biased due to violations of the stable unit treatment value assumption, a phenomenon we refer to as “interference bias.” Cluster randomization, i.e., the practice of randomizing treatment assignment at the level of “clusters” of similar individuals, is an established experiment design technique for countering interference bias in social networks, but it is unclear ex ante if it will be effective in marketplace settings. In this paper, we use a meta-experiment or “experiment over experiments” conducted on Airbnb to both provide empirical evidence of interference bias in online market settings and assess the viability of cluster randomization as a tool for reducing interference bias in marketplace TATE estimates. Results from our meta-experiment indicate that at least 19.76% of the TATE estimate produced by an individual-randomized evaluation of the platform fee increase we study is attributable to interference bias and eliminated through the use of cluster randomization. We also find suggestive, non-statistically significant evidence that interference bias in seller-side experiments is more severe in demand-constrained markets, and that the efficacy of cluster randomization at reducing interference bias increases with cluster quality.

Working Papers

applied micro
theory

Who Benefits from Payroll Tax Cuts? Market Power, Tax Incidence and Efficiency (JMP)

Presented: NBER Public Economics and Business Taxation, Cowles Conference on Public and Labor Economics, Stanford SITE, SOLE, IIPF Conference

Media: O Globo

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Abstract: This paper studies firms’ margins of response to a historically large payroll tax cut that affects a subset of Brazilian firms. Difference-in-differences estimates based on plausibly exogenous legal variation indicate that the payroll tax reduction causes an increase in employment, wages, and profits, while capital decreases. Responses are substantially more pronounced among small firms, and workers’ earnings gains are concentrated at the top of the distribution. This evidence cannot be reconciled within a competitive framework. I estimate a model that allows for product and labor market power to explain these findings. Reduced-form estimates reveal that consumers pay 65% of payroll taxes, firm owners 23%, and workers 12%. These results establish not only that payroll tax cuts primarily benefit consumers, but also exacerbate within-firm earnings inequality.

theory

The Cost of Informality: An Optimal Taxation Approach

Presented: Econometric Society 2018; Public Economic Theory 2017; Brazilian Econometric Society 2017; UC Berkeley PF and Development Lunch 2018

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Abstract: What is the cost of informality? On the one hand, an informal sector creates a restriction on the set of policies that can be implemented. On the other hand, its existence offers an alternative for those for whom the benefits of formal relations do not compensate for the costs. Based on Mirrlees’ (1971b) we propose an optimal tax formula that accounts for the existence of informality. This allows us to adopt an inverse-optimum procedure to recover the social objective that rationalizes the current tax system and use it to evaluate the welfare consequences of eliminating the informal sector. Using survey data from Brazil that encompasses formal and informal workers’ wages, we calibrate the model to recover the main parameters that underlie the formalization decision, i.e., the joint distribution of productivity and the formalization costs. We find welfare gains of 6.3% which can be decomposed into a 2% gain from a direct increase in tax revenues and a 4.3% gain from re-optimizing the tax system.

Work in Progress

The Role of Tax Preparers in Individual Tax Optimization

Books

general writing

Thriving in Economics

Funds donated to Ukraine, ebook , March 2023

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Teaching

UC Berkeley
MBA
MBA 200S: Data and Decision
Full time MBA program (Professor: Reed Walker), 2019
EWMBA 200S: Data and Decision
Executive MBA program (Professor: Fred Finan), 2020
PhD
ECON 204: Math Camp
First year Haas PhD core class (Professor: Chris Shannon), 2019 and 2020
ECON 230B: Public Economics
Second year Econ PhD elective class (Professor: Emmanuel Saez), 2021 and 2022
Undergraduate
ECON 131: Public Economics
Undergraduate class (Professor: Emmanuel Saez), 2021
EPGE-FGV (Getulio Vargas Foundation)
MBA
Microeconomics
Executive MBA core class (Professor: Carlos Eugênio da Costa), 2016
PhD
Game Theory
First year PhD core class (Professor: Luís Braido), 2016
Econometrics
First year PhD core class (Professor: Marcelo Moreira), 2016