| CV |

| Working Papers|

| In Progress|

| Published Papers |

| Other Publications |

| Teaching|

| Miscellaneous|

| LSE Economics |

| Public Econ at LSE |

Johannes Spinnewijn

Position: Professor of Economics

Research Interests: Public Economics, Social Insurance, Behavioral Economics, Health Economics

Other Positions and Affiliations:

• Director, CEPR Public Economics Program
• Co-director, STICERD Public Economics
• Theme Convenor, International Inequalities Institute
• Associate Editor: Review of Economic Studies and American Economic Review
• Research Fellow: IFS and CEP

Contact details:

• Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 7022
• Email: j.spinnewijn@lse.ac.uk
• Room number: 32LIF 3.24

Job Opportunity: Pre-doctoral Research Assistants

• The Public Finance Group of the Economics Dept at the LSE is hiring full-time pre-doctoral research assistants. Applicants should be completing (or have completed) a Bachelor's or Masters degree and have strong quantitative and programming skills. This position is suitable for people looking to obtain experience in economic research for 1 to 2 years before applying to graduate school in economics. If you would like more information, please visit our website here or see the advert here.

Working Papers

• The Chronic Disease Index: Analyzing Health Inequalities Over the Lifecycle (with Kaveh Danesh, Jon Kolstad and Will Parker) - May 2024

Abstract: The rich live longer than the poor, but relatively little is known about the evolution of health inequality across the lifecycle. Using rich administrative data from the Netherlands, we develop an index of chronic disease burden based on the projected contribution to old-age mortality. Chronic conditions account for one-third of the mortality gap in old age. Using our index we demonstrate that health inequality arises much earlier in life; by age 35, the bottom half of the income distribution has the same disease burden as those aged 50 in the top half. Approximately 60% of the divergence across income groups is due to low-income individuals developing chronic illness at a faster rate, rather than chronically ill individuals sorting into lower-income groups. Using linked health survey data, we then examine the contributions of various mediators to the incidence of chronic diseases over the life-cycle. Socio-economic and geographic factors explain most of the variation, while individual health behaviors play a moderate role. Our findings align with calls to target health policies toward early-life social determinants of health.


• The Nature of Long-Term Unemployment: Predictability, Heterogeneity and Selection (with Andreas Mueller) - June 2024
Revise & Resubmit - Journal of Political Economy

Abstract: This paper studies the predictability of long-term unemployment (LTU) using rich administrative data from Sweden. We establish substantial heterogeneity in LTU risk across individuals, accounting for both observed and unobserved heterogeneity using a wide range of observable predictors and multiple spell outcomes respectively. We apply our prediction algorithm to study the dynamics of job finding over the unemployment spell and the business cycle. Selection effects can explain most of the decline in average job finding over the unemployment spell, but little of its cyclicality. We also find sizeable heterogeneity in the profiles of job finding over the unemployment spell, but not so over the business cycle.

Published Papers

• The Socio-Economic Distribution of Choice Quality: Evidence from Health Insurance in the Netherlands (with Ben Handel, Jonathan Kolstad and Thomas Minten) - Long WP version; VoxEU; ESB, NYTimes, NRC, Financieel Dagblad
Forthcoming in the American Economic Review: Insights


• Retirement Consumption and Pension Design (with Jonas Kolsrud, Camille Landais and Daniel Reck) - VoxEU; De Standaard, Le Soir
American Economic Review, 114 (1), 89-133. January 2024.


• The Value of Unemployment Insurance (with Camille Landais)
Review of Economic Studies 88 (6), 3041-3085. November 2021.


• The Income Gradient in Mortality during the Covid-19 Crisis: Evidence from Belgium (with Andre Decoster and Thomas Minten) - Leuvense Economisch Standpunten; Knack
Journal of Economic Inequality - Special Issue on Covid-19, 551-570. September 2021.


• How to Improve Tax Compliance? Evidence from Population-wide Experiments in Belgium (with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Clement Imbert, Teodora Tsankova and Maarten Luts) - VoxEU; De Standaard, De Morgen
Journal of Political Economy 129 (5), 1425–1463. May 2021.


• Risk-based Selection in Unemployment Insurance: Evidence and Implications (with Camille Landais, Arash Nekoei, Peter Nilsson and David Seim) - VoxEU
American Economic Review 111 (4), 1315-1355, April 2021.


• Inferring Risk Perceptions and Preferences using Choice from Insurance Menus: Theory and Evidence (with Keith Ericson, Philipp Kircher and Amanda Starc)
Economic Journal 131 (634), 713-744 - Featured Article. February 2021.


• Job Seekers' Perceptions and Employment Prospects: Heterogeneity, Duration Dependence and Bias (with Andreas Mueller and Giorgio Topa) - Slides; NBER Digest, VoxEU
American Economic Review 111 (1), 324-364. January 2021.


• The Value of Registry Data for Consumption Analysis: An Application to Health Shocks (with Jonas Kolsrud and Camille Landais) - VoxEU
Journal of Public Economics 189, 1040-1088. September 2020.


• Information Frictions and Adverse Selection: Policy Interventions in Health Insurance Markets (with Ben Handel and Jonathan Kolstad)
  Review of Economics and Statistics 101(2), 326-340. May 2019.
  


• The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits: Theory and Evidence from Sweden (with Jonas Kolsrud, Camille Landais and Peter Nilsson) - Slides; Microeconomic Insights, Leuvense Economisch Standpunten; Le Soir, De Standaard
  American Economic Review 108(4-5), 985-1033. April 2018.
  


• Heterogeneity, Demand for Insurance and Adverse Selection - Web Appendix
  American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 9(1), 308-343. February 2017.
  


• Rewarding Schooling Success and Perceived Returns to Education: Evidence from India (with Sandra Sequeira and Guo Xu)
  Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 131, 373-392. November 2016.
  


• Production vs. Revenue Efficiency with Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan (with Anne Brockmeyer, Michael Best, Henrik Kleven, and Mazhar Waseem) - Slides; VoxEU; Microeconomic Insights
  Journal of Political Economy 123(6), 1311-1355. December 2015.
  


• Revising Claims and Resisting Ultimatums in Bargaining Games (with Frans Spinnewyn)
  Review of Economic Design 19(2), 91-116. June 2015.
  


• Unemployed but Optimistic: Optimal Insurance Design with Biased Beliefs
  Journal of the European Economic Association 13(1), 130-167. February 2015.
  


• Delay and Deadlines: Freeriding and Information Revelation in Partnerships (with Arthur Campbell and Florian Ederer)
  American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 6(2), 163-204. May 2014.
  


• Insurance and Perceptions: How to Screen Optimists and Pessimists
  Economic Journal 123, 606-633 - Awarded with Austin Robinson Memorial Prize. June 2013.
  


• Training and Search During Unemployment
  Journal of Public Economics 99, 49-65. March 2013.
  


• Capital Income Taxes with Heterogeneous Discount Rates (with Peter Diamond)
  American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 3(4), 52-76. November 2011.
  

Other Publications

• Risk Scores for Long-Term Unemployment and the Assignment to Job Search Counseling (with Sebastian Ernst and Andreas Mueller)
AEA Papers & Proceedings 114, 572–76. May 2024.


• The Value and Limits of Unemployment Insurance (with Jonas Kolsrud)
LSE Public Policy Review 3(2), 1-8. March 2024.


• Expectations Data, Labor Market and Job Search (with Andreas Mueller)
Handbook of Economic Expectations, Vol 1, Chapter 22, Bachman et al. (Eds), Elsevier. November 2022


• Choice in Insurance Markets: A Pigouvian Approach to Social Insurance Design (with Nathan Hendren and Camille Landais)
Annual Review of Economics 13, 457-486. May 2021.


• The Trade-off between Insurance and Incentives in Differentiated Unemployment Policies
Fiscal Studies 41(1), 101-127. Special Issue: 50th Anniversary of IFS. March 2020.


• Solutions Manual to Accompany Contract Theory (with Arthur Campbell, Moshe Cohen and Florian Ederer)
  The MIT Press. September 2007.
  

Current Courses Taught

• Public Economics (PhD, LSE course, ec534)
• Public Economics (MSc, LSE course, ec426)
• Public Economics (MPA, LSE course, ec410)

Press Coverage/Other Writings

• "Met enkele lukrake financiele prikkels redden we het niet" Op-ed in De Standaard / Le Soir (July 9, 2022) (link DS, link LS)
• "Covid has been a catastrophe. Can it also be an opportunity?" featured in Financial Times (April 2, 2021) (link)
• "Slechte eigenrisicokeuzes maken de zorgverzekering duurder voor laagopgeleiden" Economische en Statistische Berichten (February 20, 2021) (link)
• "Job seekers' beliefs and the causes of long-term unemployment" VoxEU (January 29, 2021) (link)
• "Inequality in choice quality: Evidence from health insurance choices in the Netherlands" VoxEU (November 21, 2020) (link)
• "Waarom we liever de cijfers dan het buikgevoel laten spreken" Op-ed in De Standaard (August 27, 2019) (link)
• "Moeten de werkloosheidsuitkeringen toe- of afnemen in de tijd?" Interview in Knack (August 14, 2019) (link)
• "Uitkeringen zijn geen spelletje hoger/lager" Op-ed in De Standaard (September 24, 2018) (link)
• "Une baisse plus rapide des allocations est-elle a recommander?" Op-ed in Le Soir (September 24, 2018) (link)
• "Consumption Data: New Frontiers" VoxEU (April 4, 2018) (link)
• "Unemployment Insurance and Adverse Selection" VoxEU (February 3, 2018) (link)
• "Designing Tax Policy in High-Evasion Economies" VoxEU (January 5, 2016) (link), Microeconomic Insights (April 27, 2016) (link)
• "De mythe van de hangmat" Op-ed in De Standaard (May 15, 2014) (link)
• "De ivoren toren van economen is een mythe" Op-ed in De Standaard (August 3, 2013) (link)
• "En als we langdurig werklozen meer zouden betalen?" Op-ed in De Morgen (February 12, 2012) (link)
• "The Role of Commitment" comment on "On the interaction between subsidiarity and interpersonal solidarity" by Jacques Dreze (link)
• "Hard cash or a secure job - which is better?" featured in Financial Times (February 7, 2009) (link)