Jacob Goldin

Jacob Goldin

Richard M. Lipton Professor of Tax Law

Jacob Goldin is the Richard M. Lipton Professor of Tax Law. Trained as a lawyer and economist, much of Professor Goldin’s research focuses on US tax policy affecting low-income households. His research interests also include health policy, tax administration, and the application of behavioral economics to policy design.

Prior to joining the Chicago Law School faculty, Goldin was a professor of law at Stanford Law School. He has also previously worked in the Office of Tax Policy at the US Treasury Department, and clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He holds a JD from Yale Law School and a PhD in economics from Princeton University.

Journal Articles

  • "How Redundant are Redundant Encodings? Blindness in the Wild and Racial Disparity when Race is Unobserved," 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency 667 (2023) (with Lingwei Cheng, Isabel O. Gallegos, Derek Ouyang & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "Algorithmic Fairness and Vertical Equity: Income Fairness with IRS Tax Audit Models," June 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency 1479 (2022) (with Emily Black, Hadi Elzayn, Alexandra Chouldechova & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "Whose Child? Designing Child-Claiming Rules for Safety Net Programs," 131 Yale Law Journal 1719 (2022) (with Ariel J. Kleiman). www
  • "Who Benefits from the Child Tax Credit?," 75 National Tax Journal: Forum 123 (2022) (with Katherine Michelmore). www
  • "Tax filing and take-up: Experimental evidence on tax preparation outreach and benefit claiming," 206 Journal of Public Economics 104550 (2022) (with Tatiana Homonoff, Rizwan Javaid & Brenda Schafer). www
  • "Issuance and Incidence: SNAP Benefit Cycles and Grocery Prices," 14 American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 152 (2022) (with Tatiana Homonoff & Katherine Meckel). www
  • "Estimating the Net Fiscal Cost of a Child Tax Credit Expansion," 36 Tax Policy and the Economy 159 (2022) (with Elaine Maag & Katherine Michelmore). www
  • "Health Insurance and Mortality: Experimental Evidence from Taxpayer Outreach," 136 Quarterly Journal of Economics 1 (2021) (with Ithai Z. Lurie & Janet McCubbin). www
  • "How Much to Save? Decision Costs and Retirement Plan Participation," 191 Journal of Public Economics 104247 (2020) (with Tatiana Homonoff, Richard Patterson & William Skimmyhorn). www
  • "Communicating Tax Penalties to Delinquent Taxpayers: Evidence from a Field Experiment," 73 National Tax Journal 331 (2020) (with Taylor Cranor, Tatiana Homonoff & Lindsay Moore). www
  • "Sharp Lines and Sliding Scales in Tax Law," 73 Tax Law Review 237 (2020) (with Edward Fox).
  • "Legal Rasputins? Law Clerk Influence on Voting at the U.S. Supreme Court," 35 Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 1 (2019) (with Adam Chilton, Adam Bonica, Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen). cu www
  • "The Analysis of Survey Data with Framing Effects," 73 American Statistician 264 (2018) (with Daniel Reck).
  • "Raising the Stakes: Experimental Evidence on the Robustness of Taxpayer Mistakes," 72 National Tax Journal 201 (2018) (with Naomi Feldman & Tatiana Homonoff). www
  • "Caveat IRS: Problems with Abandoning the Full Deduction Rule," 88 State Tax Notes 547 (2018) (with Joseph Bankman, David Gamage & Daniel Hemel, Darien Shanske, Kirk J. Stark & Dennis Ventry). ssrn cu
  • "Rationalizations and Mistakes: Optimal Policy with Normative Ambiguity," 108 AEA Papers & Proceedings 98 (2018) (with Daniel Reck). www
  • "State Responses to Federal Tax Reform: Charitable Tax Credits," 159 Tax Notes 641 (2018) (with Joseph Bankman, David Gamage & Daniel Hemel, Darien Shanske, Kirk J. Stark, Dennis Ventry & Manoj Viswanathan).
  • "The Effects of Pretrial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," 108 American Economic Review 201 (2018) (with Will Dobbie & Crystal Yang). www
  • "Tax Benefit Complexity and Take-up: Lessons from the Earned Income Tax Credit," 72 Tax Law Review 59 (2018).
  • "Beyond Head of Household: Rethinking the Taxation of Single Parents," 71 Tax Law Review 367 (2018) (with Zachary Liscow).
  • "Participation in the IRS Free-File Program," 157 Tax Notes 543 (2017).
  • "Measuring Judicial Ideology Using Law Clerk Hiring," 19 American Law and Economics Review 129 (2017) (with Adam Chilton, Adam Bonica, Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen). ssrn cu www
  • "Retirement Contribution Rate Nudges and Plan Participation: Evidence from a Field Experiment," 107 American Economic Review 456 (2017) (with Tatiana Homonoff & William Tucker).
  • "The Political Ideologies of Law Clerks," 19 American Law and Economics Review 96 (2017) (with Adam Chilton, Adam Bonica & Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen). ssrn cu www
  • "Libertarian Quasi-Paternalism," 82 Missouri Law Review 669 (2017).
  • "Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan Bans," 59 225 (2016) (with Neil Bhutta & Tatiana Homonoff). www
  • "Defaults, Mandates, and Taxes: Policy Design with Active and Passive Decision-Makers," 18 American Law and Economics Review 438 (2016) (with Nicholas Lawson).
  • "Optimal Tax Salience," 131 Journal of Public Economics 115 (2015). www
  • "Which Way to Nudge? Uncovering Preferences in the Behavioral Age," 125 Yale Law Journal 226 (2015).
  • "Tax Expenditure Salience," 16 American Law and Economics Review 144 (2014) (with Yair Listokin).
  • "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Cigarette Tax Salience and Regressivity," 5 American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 302 (2013) (with Tatiana Homonoff).
  • "Reconsidering Substance Over Form in PPL," 137 Tax Notes 1229 (2012).
  • "Sales Tax Not Included: Designing Commodity Taxes for Inattentive Consumers," 122 Yale Law Journal 258 (2012).

Working Papers

  • "Forecasting Algorithms for Causal Inference with Panel Data," (2022) (with Julian Nyarko & Justin Young). www
  • "The Claiming of Children on U.S. Tax Returns, 2017-2019," (2022) (with Geoffrey Gee & Joseph Hancuch, Ithai Z. Lurie & Vedant Vohra). ssrn