Matt Pierson
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matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Matt Pierson
@matthewcpierson.bsky.social
140 followers 180 following 200 posts
Researching tax avoidance, illicit flows, and their effects on household and public finance. | WRDS, UPenn | Otherwise: all things data.
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matthewcpierson.bsky.social
This is super cool use of historical data to answer a current question.
ppcreanza.bsky.social Pier Paolo Creanza @ppcreanza.bsky.social · 1d
🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market!

My JMP asks a classic question:
Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation?

To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont.

A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)
November 11, 2025 at 10:27 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
"WRITE THAT DOWN"

-political economy grad students
bonescrosby.bsky.social Resident Bills Homer @bonescrosby.bsky.social · 2d
It’s something of a gerontocracy. Say what you will about Phillip Morris, but when more folks smoked, this wasn’t as much an issue.
November 10, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
richardrubindc.bsky.social
New from me: The corporate tax cuts from this year's law are running into a roadblock -- the 2022 corporate minimum tax.

Companies (Meta, Qualcomm) are disclosing billions of dollars in tax breaks they can't use. And there's pressure on Treasury to ease the rules.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Trump’s Tax Cuts Are Exposing Companies to Biden’s Tax Hike
Democrats’ older alternative minimum tax claws back billions of dollars in savings from the newer GOP law.
www.wsj.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:14 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
The tension for sales people between Clearly Cishet Man Alone in a Cosmetics Shop and Customer Wearing Headphones is quite the social awkwardness generator
November 8, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
rickhornbeck.bsky.social
Hi all, please spread the word and we hope everyone can make good use of this new data drop: cmfdata.org

The full surviving establishment-level Census of Manufactures manuscripts and digitized data from 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880!
Historical Census of Manufactures Microdata - Historical Census of Manufactures Microdata
CMFdata.org
November 6, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
tenaprelec.bsky.social
New OA article @europe-asia.bsky.social: The Incumbency Advantage and the Enabler Effect: How Londongrad Beat the UK AML Regime

Drawing on £2bn of property data, we show that not a single incumbent kleptocrat (0/72!) lost their UK assets.

with @jheathershaw.bsky.social T. Mayne & S. Tokubayev
November 3, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
gelliottmorris.com
these charts show the relationship between zip code-level average income and individual probability of voting for democrats in different regions of the country. one of my favorite group fo charts, lots of stories to unearth
November 2, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
lswisnom.bsky.social
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
bdgesq.bsky.social
Architect here. If any other states want to fill coffers that the feds have emptied, and want to build a fairer tax system that asks billionaires to finally pay more like a fair share, my DMs are open!
ddayen.bsky.social David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 20d
California is readying a one-time 5% tax on billionaires for the 2026 ballot that would go toward compensating for Trump's Medicaid cuts. The architects see it as a national model.
It will be announced today.
October 23, 2025 at 3:09 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
@taxobservatory.bsky.social 's lunch seminars are now hybrid, so even if you don't live in Paris (I mean...) you can keep up with tax research from the comfort of your own wherever
taxobservatory.bsky.social EU Tax Observatory @taxobservatory.bsky.social · 23d
Does Switzerland’s tax system really level the playing field — or just move the goalposts? 🤔

Join Enea Baselgia (ETH Zurich) at our next #LunchSeminar.

🗓️ Oct 24 | 12:00 CET |
📍@PSEinfo & online
🔗 lnkd.in/dkpC68XU
October 21, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
joshua-goodman.com
Wow. This is the paper I have been waiting for. Mobile apps are brain rot, with meaningfully bad economic consequences for those who overuse them.
October 17, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
paulgp.com
Posted a short blog post with updated data (and public repo with data) of current state of Econ job market:

paulgp.com/2025/10/08/j...
October 8, 2025 at 8:26 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
I want to teach an Economics of Immigration course (no I don't), just once, so I can have this image as my opening slide.
Incredible satire or the least self-aware image of all time?
October 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
trevondlogan.bsky.social
Good history helps us avoid nostalgia. The great article “Economic History and the Historians” (2020) by Anne McCants reminds me why nostalgia can get us in trouble. Two of her examples are very relevant to today: vaccinations and the popular narrative of some economic “good old days.”
Getting vaccinated is unpleasant. Dying of measles is worse. In the decade before the 1963 vaccine for measles emerged, an average of 475 Americans died from measles every year, most of them children. This (absolute) number had dropped to a low of 1 in 1981, despite a steadily increasing population that might have hypothetically contributed additional cases. Sadly, the number of measles cases in the United States has been steadily climbing upward again because we seem not to remember the ravages of the disease so much as the inconvenience of the shot—even without taking into account the absurd rejection of the solid scientific evidence in favor of vaccinations. Many people still have an elderly relative who survived a bout of severe childhood illness; not one of us has an elderly relative who did not. The blurring of the historical evidence for and against vaccination that arises from strangely incongruous historical narratives allows a seemingly inconsequential but nonetheless deadly nostalgia to run rampant. Another example of dangerous reverence for the past concerns the flurry of popular enthusiasm lately (at least if the pundits of the 2016 American election are to be believed) for the “good old days” of the 1950s when a family could live securely on just one income (in these nostalgic accounts, that one income is usually a man’s). Lest we forget, these are the same good old days of poor air quality and measles. Maybe trivial in comparison but certainly indicative of the scope of the cognitive problem that nostalgia presents, the average size of a new home built in America in 1950 was 983 sq. ft.; by 2010, the average size had risen to 2,392 sq. ft. Given that families were larger on average in the 1950s than they were in 2010, per capita space allocation had risen even faster than total area. Although we might not need that much personal space, many of us have become used to it. Older furniture now looks tiny compared to what is now on offer in showrooms, whereas older television sets were behemoths with miniscule screens showing programs in glorious black and white.
September 29, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
zorkamilin.bsky.social
Why would some business interests prefer for Congress to fly blind in tax policymaking? 🤔

Very good take from @howardgleckman.bsky.social @taxpolicycenter.bsky.social:
September 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
mattcollin.bsky.social
🚨New working paper🚨

In this updated work with Annette Alstadsaeter, @bluebery-planterose.com , @gabrielzucman.bsky.social and @andokl.bsky.social , we use leaked data to chart the rise of offshore real estate in Dubai

www.taxobservatory.eu//www-site/up...
September 16, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
taxobservatory.bsky.social
Guess what? EUTO #LunchSeminar is back! 🚀

🎙️Join Margarita López Forero ( @banquedefrance-off.bsky.social ) for an interesting discussion on offshoring wage inequality in tax havens.

🗓️ September 19 | 12pm (CET)
📍 @pse.bsky.social & Zoom

🔗 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
September 15, 2025 at 9:23 AM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Ahh yes, those growth promoting investments: microcaptive insurance and basis shifting through complex partnerships
September 9, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
mattcollin.bsky.social
I have given in and started a Substack to write about illicit finance, development and data

In my first post, I explain why we should be careful about citing the $312 billion statistic on the size of Chinese money laundering

datadarkly.substack.com/p/exactly-ho...
Exactly how big is that Chinese money laundering ring?
The difficulty of inferring from suspicious transaction reports
datadarkly.substack.com
September 5, 2025 at 1:05 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
This is a really cool WP (and therefore a cool conference that has it on the program)
dforemny.bsky.social Dirk Foremny @dforemny.bsky.social · Sep 5
The second day of #MadPub25 started with Naomi Feldman delivering a keynote on "Tax Complexity and Tax Confusion: From Early Misperceptions to Recent Evidence". Thanks for sharing your interesting thoughts with us in Madrid at @cunef.bsky.social! @cmtneztt.bsky.social @miguelalmunia.bsky.social
September 5, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
bhgreeley.bsky.social
The Fed is not good at talking to citizens. Its communications culture is aimed at markets, which means it knows how to give coded, cautious hints that leave room for negotiation. That means there's little will and no experience with strong, affirmative signals in response to wanton norm-burning.
August 29, 2025 at 2:07 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Good to see the NYT Editorial Section has been Like This towards the Dems since 1937 at least
@nytpitchbot.bsky.social
Henry Morgenthau transcript from 1937 on NYT OpEd section
August 18, 2025 at 8:03 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Hey you could join the hallowed ranks of

/checks notes

me? That can't be right.
natltax.bsky.social National Tax Association @natltax.bsky.social · Aug 14
Volunteering is a great way to be involved with NTA and another way to engage with your colleagues! 

Apply to be a Discussant or a Session Chair at the 118th NTA Annual Conference 👉 https://nta.memberclicks.net/annual_conference_volunteer_form#/

The deadline to apply is August 15, 2025.
August 14, 2025 at 8:22 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Excuse me the irrelevance of municipal credit ratings?!?!
dynarski.bsky.social Prof Dynarski @dynarski.bsky.social · Aug 10
E.J. Antoni, being pushed by MAGA for head of BLS

…got his PhD in 2020

…has no publications other than his dissertation

…which has 1 citation

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-administration-considers-longtime-critic-to-lead-bureau-of-labor-statistics
August 11, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
jenniferdoleac.bsky.social
The ViCE seminar schedule for early fall 2025 is up! We start back up again next week (Aug 14).

jenniferdoleac.com/vice-seminar/
August 8, 2025 at 6:51 AM