Benjamin Lockwood

Assistant Professor
Business Economics and Public Policy

The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania

Research Publications

What Drives Demand for State-Run Lotteries? Evidence and Welfare Implications
with Hunt Allcott, Dmitry Taubinsky, and Afras Sial
Accepted at the Review of Economic Studies
[Download paper]

Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
with Afras Sial and Matthew Weinzierl
Tax Policy and the Economy, 2021, 35, pp. 1-54.
[Journal webpage] [NBER version]

Optimal Income Taxation with Present Bias
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2020, 12 (4), pp. 298-327.
[Journal webpage] [Appendix]

Regressive Sin Taxes, with an Application to the Optimal Soda Tax
with Hunt Allcott and Dmitry Taubinsky
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2019, 134 (3), pp. 1557–1626.
[Journal webpage] [NBER version with appendix]
News coverage: The Economist, Philadelphia Inquirer

Designing Better Sugary Drink Taxes
with Anna H. Grummon, Dmitry Taubinsky and Hunt Allcott
Science, 2019, 365 (6457), pp. 989-900.
[Journal webpage] [Appendix]
News coverage: AAAS, Inverse, ScienceDaily

Should We Tax Sugar-Sweetened Beverages? An Overview of Theory and Evidence
with Hunt Allcott and Dmitry Taubinsky
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2019, 33 (3), pp. 202-227.
[Journal webpage] [NBER version]

Ramsey Strikes Back: Optimal Commodity Taxes and Redistribution in the Presence of Salience Effects
with Hunt Allcott and Dmitry Taubinsky
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, 2018, 108, pp. 88-92.
[Journal webpage] [NBER version with appendix]

Taxation and the Allocation of Talent
with Charles Nathanson and E. Glen Weyl
Journal of Political Economy, 2017, 125 (5), pp. 1635-1682.
[Journal webpage] [SSRN version] [Appendix]
News coverage: Vox, Marginal Revolution

Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in U.S. Tax Policy, and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions
with Matthew Weinzierl
Journal of Monetary Economics, 2016, 77, pp. 30-47.
[Journal webpage] [NBER version] [Appendix]

De Gustibus Non Est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution
with Matthew Weinzierl
Journal of Public Economics, 2015, 124, pp. 74-80.
[Journal webpage] [Pre-press version with appendix]

Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools
with Jonah Rockoff
Journal of Public Economics, 2010, 94 (11-12), pp. 1051-1061.
[Journal webpage] [Pre-press version]

Working Papers

Sufficient Statistics for Nonlinear Tax Systems with General Across-Income Heterogeneity
with Antoine Ferey and Dmitry Taubinsky
Revision requested (second round) at the American Economic Review
[Download paper]

Diffuse Bunching with Frictions: Theory and Estimation
with Santosh Anagol, Allan Davids, and Tarun Ramadorai
[Download paper]

Other Writing

The cigarette tax has saved millions of lives. A soda tax could too
with Hunt Allcott and Dmitry Taubinsky
Los Angeles Times (June 3, 2019)
[Link to article]

What If Socially Useful Jobs Were Taxed Less Than Other Jobs?
with Charles Nathanson and E. Glen Weyl
Harvard Business Review (October 11, 2017)
[Link to article]