Columbia University
1022 International Affairs Building, MC 3308
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
phone: 212-854-2519
fax: 212-854-8059
e-mail: wk2110 @ columbia.edu
web: www.kopczuk.com

Employment and Affiliations

Associate Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, 2005-2007; with tenure 1/2008-present
Assistant Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, 2003-2005
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of British Columbia, 2001-2003
Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Public Economics Program, 2008-present; Faculty Research Fellow, 2002-2008.
Visiting Researcher (IPA), Social Security Administration, Office of Policy, 2/2007-12/2007
Research Affiliate, CESifo, 2006-present
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, 2003-present
Research Associate, Office of Tax Policy Research, University of Michigan, 1998-2001.

Education

Ph.D., Economics, University of Michigan, 2001
M.A., Economics, University of Michigan, 1998
M.Sc., Computer Science, Warsaw University, 1996
B.A., Economics, Warsaw University, 1996

Journal Publications

"Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data since 1937" (with Emmanuel Saez and Jae Song, Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming. Online appendix.
"Women, wealth and mobility" (with Lena Edlund), American Economic Review, 2009, 99(1), 146-78.
"Bequest and Tax Planning: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007, 122(4), 1801-1854.
"Electronic Filing, Tax Preparers and Participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit" (with Kiki Pop-Eleches), Journal of Public Economics, 2007, 91(7-8), 1351-1367.
"To Leave or Not to Leave: The Distribution of Bequest Motives" (with Joseph Lupton), The Review of Economic Studies, 2007, 74(1), 207-235.
"Putting Firms into Optimal Tax Theory" (with Joel Slemrod), American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 2006, 96(2), 130-134.
"Tax Bases, Tax Rates and the Elasticity of Reported Income," Journal of Public Economics, 2005, 89(11-12), 2093-2119. An older version is available as an NBER working paper #10044
"Denial of death and economic behavior" (with Joel Slemrod), Advances in Theoretical Economics, 2005: Vol. 5: No. 1, Article 5.
"The Limitations of Decentralized World Redistribution: An Optimal Taxation Approach" (with Joel Slemrod and Shlomo Yitzhaki) European Economic Review, 2005, 49(4), 1051-1079. An older version of this paper was distributed as NBER Working Paper #9186 under the title "Why World Redistribution Fails."
"Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916-2000: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns," (with Emmanuel Saez), National Tax Journal, 2004, 57(2, part 2), 445-488. The long NBER Working Paper version (#10399); tables and figures.
"The Trick is to Live: Is the Estate Tax Social Security for the Rich?," Journal of Political Economy, 2003, 111(6), 1318-1341.
"A Note on Optimal Taxation in the Presence of Externalities," Economics Letters, 2003, 80(1), 81-86.
"Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity" (with Joel Slemrod), Review of Economics and Statistics, 2003, 85(2), 256-265.
"The Optimal Elasticity of Taxable Income" (with Joel Slemrod), Journal of Public Economics, 2002, 84(1), 91-112. Reprinted in ``Economics of Tax Law,'' David A. Weisbach (ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008.
"Redistribution when Avoidance Behavior is Heterogeneous," Journal of Public Economics, 2001, 81(1), 51-71.

Other Publications

"The Impact of the Estate Tax on the Wealth Accumulation and Avoidance Behavior of Donors" (with Joel Slemrod), in William G. Gale, James R. Hines Jr., and Joel B. Slemrod (eds.), Rethinking Estate and Gift Taxation, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001, 299-343.
"Tax Consequences on Wealth Accumulation and Transfers of the Rich" (with Joel Slemrod), in Alicia H. Munnell and Annika Sunden (eds.), Death and Dollars: The Role of Gifts and Bequests in America, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003, 213-249.
"Tax Simplification and Tax Compliance: An Economic Perspective," in Max Sawicky (ed.), Bridging the Tax Gap. Addressing the Crisis in Tax Administration, 2006, Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 111-143.
"Estate and Inheritance Taxation," in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume (eds.) Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Research Papers

"Economics of estate taxation: Review of theory and evidence" (prepared for the Tax Law Review symposium on Lily Batchelder's "Replacing the estate tax with an inheritance tax")
"Transfer Program Complexity and the Take Up of Social Benefits" (with Henrik Kleven)
"Uncovering the American Dream: Inequality and Mobility in Social Security Earnings Data since 1937, NBER WP #13345, August 2007. Shorter and significantly revised version published as "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data since 1937" in Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming.
"Optimal Estate Taxation in the Steady State"
"The Choice of Personal Income Tax Base" (with Roger Gordon)
 

Presentations and Conferences

University of Michigan (multiple times) 1998-2001; Rethinking Estate and Gift Taxation, Washington DC, May 2000; Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics, July 2000; National Tax Association Conference on Taxation, Santa Fe, November 2000; Chicago GSB, Yale, Columbia, Stanford GSB, UBC, Northwestern, Stockholm and Cambridge, January-February 2001; National Tax Association Conference on Taxation, Baltimore, MD, November 2001; The Role and Impact of Gifts and Estates, Woodstock, VT, November 2001; Columbia, December 2002; AEA meeting, Washington, DC, January 2003; Behavioral Public Finance, USC, February 2003; UC-Berkeley and Stanford, April 2003; NBER conference on 'Taxation and Saving', Chatham, August 2003; Congress of IIPF, Prague, August 2003; AEA meeting, San Diego, January 2004; Syracuse University, February 2004; Harvard/MIT, March 2004; National Tax Association Conference on Taxation, Minneapolis, MN, November 2004; Duke, February 2005; University of Michigan, March 2005; NBER Public Economics Metting, April 2005; NBER Summer Institute, July 2005; NBER Japan Meeting (discussant), September 2005; University of Wisconsin, November 2005; AEA meeting in Boston (discussant), January 2006; UC-Berkeley, January 2006; University of Virginia, March 2006; Warsaw Economic Meeting, July 2006; CESifo visit, July 2006; Rutgers, October 2006; AEA meeting, Chicago, January 2007; University of Michigan, March 2007; NBER Public Economics meeting (discussant), April 2007; NYU Law School, April 2007; Texas A&M, April 2007; IRS research conference, June 2007; CASE Warsaw, August 2007; Harvard, September 2007; University of Texas at Austin, October 2007; Hunter College, October 2007; University of Calgary, October 2007; TAPES meeting in Paris (discussant), June 2008; Nordic Workshop on Public Economics and Tax Policy, Uppsala, Sweden (keynote lectures), October 2008; UC-San Diego, November 2008; UC-Irvine, November 2008; NBER Public Economics meeting at Stanford, November 2008; University of Maryland, November 2008; Yale, December 2008. AEA meeting in San Francisco, (present/discuss), January 2009; Workshop on "Tax Policy Analysis using Large Panel Data of Tax Returns," University of Michigan, March 2009; Cornell, March 2009; NBER Public Economics Meeting (discussant), April 2009; Role of Firms in Tax Systems, University of Michigan (discussant), April 2009; Wharton School, April 2009.

Fellowships and Awards

Michigan Retirement Research Consortium grant, "The Effect of Medicare and Social Security Benefits on the Timing of Retirement," 2007-2008.
NSF grant SES-0617737 (with Emmanuel Saez), "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States, 1937-2004: Evidence from Social Security Administration Data," 2006-2009.
National Tax Journal Referee-of-the-Year Award, 2005 (!).
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2005-2007
The Peggy and Richard Musgrave Award for "the best paper accepted for the Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance written by a scholar below the age of 40", 2003 (for "Tax bases, tax rates...")
Research Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2002; UBC Hampton Fund grant, 2002.
Honorable mention award in the National Tax Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award Competition, 2001.
Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, 2000-2001.
Rackham One-Term Fellowship, Fall 1999.
Award for the Best Third Year Paper, Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 1999.
Summer Research Scholarship, Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 1998.
Graduate Fellowship, Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 1996-1997.
Dean's lists, Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics and Department of Economics, Warsaw University, Poland, 1992-1996.
Award at the Belarussian Math Olympics, 1991 (represented Poland).
Award at the All-Polish Math Olympics, 1991; Finalist, 1990.

Professional Service

Co-Editor, Journal of Public Economics, 2009-.
Board of Editors, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2007-
Associate Editor, Journal of Public Economics, 2007-2009.
Referee for the American Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Political Economy, European Economic Review, Canadian Journal of Economics, International Tax and Public Finance, National Tax Journal, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Economic Inquiry, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Public Economic Theory, the National Science Foundation, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Income Distribution, B.E. Press journals, Public Administration Review, Economica, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Worth Publishers, Princeton University Press, Thomson South-Western Publishing, Review of Economics and Statistics, Empirical Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Economic Journal, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Economics Letters, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Development Economics and Journal of European Economic Association.
Program Committee of the 2009 North American summer meetings of the Econometric Society
Co-organizer of "Tax Policy Analysis Using Large Panel Data Sets of Tax Returns: An International Research Workshop," Ann Arbor, March 2009
Program Committee of the 2009 National Tax Association Annual Meeting.
Program Committee of the 2010 Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society

Other

Graduate Student Instructor, University of Michigan, 1997-1999.
Teaching Assistant, Summer School of Economics, Batory Foundation, Olsztyn and Muszyna, Poland, 1996-1998.
Research Assistant, Program for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, 1997.
IgNobel in 2001 for "Dying to save taxes" (!).
O Skubaniu, Wiadrach i Podatkach (in Polish), Gazeta Wyborcza, December 5th, 2001.
Szokujaca recesja (in Polish), Tygodnik Powszechny, February 24th, 2002.
Commentary on Resenting the rich, online debate at economist.com, April 2009.