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Jacob Goldin

Academic Faculty

Full Time Teaching Faculty

Jacob Goldin

Richard M. Lipton Professor of Tax Law

Biography

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.

Education and Experience

Education

Yale Law School

JD, 2014

Princeton University

MA in Economics, 2010
PhD in Economics, 2015

Wesleyan University

BA in Economics and Government, 2007

Experience

The University of Chicago Law School

Richard M. Lipton Professor of Tax Law, 2022 – Present

American Bar Foundation

Research Professor, 2023 – Present

National Bureau of Economic Research

Research Associate, 2023 – Present
Faculty Research Fellow, 2018 – 2023

Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

Affiliated Scholar, 2024 – Present

Treasury Department, Washington, DC

Subject Matter Expert (part-time), Inflation Reduction Act Implementation Office, 2023 – 2024
Intern, Office of Tax Policy, Summer 2013

Office of Tax Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Special Counsel, 2022 – 2023
Legal Advisor and Delegate to the Subcommittee on Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2015 – 2016

Stanford University

Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, 2022

  • Associate, 2019-2022
  • Assistant, 2016-2022

Professor of Economics (by courtesy), 2022

  • Associate (by courtesy), 2019-2022
  • Assistant (by courtesy), 2017-2019

Faculty Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 2016-2022

University of Chicago

Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Winter 2021

Hon. Richard Posner, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Judicial Clerk, 2014 – 2015

Publications

Journal Articles

  • "Enabling disaggregation of Asian American subgroups: a dataset of Wikidata names for disparity estimation," 12 Scientific Data 1 (2025) (with Qiwei Lin, Derek Ouyang, Cameron Guage, Isabel O. Gallegos & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits," 140 Quarterly Journal of Economics 113 (2025) (with Hadi Elzayn & Evelyn Smith & Thomas Hertz & Cameron Guage & Arun Ramesh & Robin Fisher & Daniel E. Ho ). www
  • "Identifying the Cumulative Causal Effect of a Non-Binary Treatment from a Binary Instrument," __ Review of Economics and Statistics __ (2024) (forthcoming) (with Vedant Vohra). www
  • "Estimating and Implementing Conventional Fairness Metrics With Probabilistic Protected Features," 2024 IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning 161 (2024) (with Hadi Elzayn, Emily Black, Patrick Vossler, Nathanael Jo & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "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
  • "Integrating Reward Maximization and Population Estimation: Sequential Decision-Making for Internal Revenue Service Audit Selection," 2023 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 5087 (2023) (with Peter Henderson, Ben Chugg, Brandon Anderson, Kristen Altenburger, Alex Turk, John Guyton & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "Entropy Regularization for Population Estimation," 2023 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 12198 (2023) (with Ben Chugg, Peter Henderson & Daniel E. Ho). www
  • "Algorithmic Fairness and Vertical Equity: Income Fairness with IRS Tax Audit Models," 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
  • "Issuance and Incidence: SNAP Benefit Cycles and Grocery Prices," 14 American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 152 (2022) (with Tatiana Homonoff & Katherine Meckel). 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
  • "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
  • "Beyond Head of Household: Rethinking the Taxation of Single Parents," 71 Tax Law Review 367 (2018) (with Zachary Liscow).
  • "Tax Benefit Complexity and Take-up: Lessons from the Earned Income Tax Credit," 72 Tax Law Review 59 (2018).
  • "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).

Book Sections

  • "Quantifying the Uncertainty of Imputed Demographic Disparity Estimates: The Dual-Bootstrap," in Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Statistics for the 21st Century (CRIV), Randall Akee, Lawrence F. Katz & Mark Loewe eds. (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming) (with Benjamin Lu, Jia Wan, Derek Ouyang & Daniel E. Ho). www

Working Papers

  • "Occupational Licensing and Labor Market Mobility: Evidence from the Legal Profession," (2024) (with Adam Chilton & Kyle Rozema & Sarath Sanga). ssrn

Presentations

Invited Presentations

  • Census Bureau Center on Economic Studies; Coase Lecture at University of Chicago Law School; NYU/UCLA Tax Conference; Center for Law and Economics at ETH Zurich; University of Zurich (2025)
  • University of Wisconsin Law School; Upjohn Institute; Notre Dame Law and Economics Workshop; University of Wisconsin Public Economics Workshop; University of Florida School of Law; Association of Mid-Career Tax Scholars; NBER Summer Institute Public Economics and Labor Economics; University of Illinois Chicago Economics Seminar; Cornell Law, Economics, and Policy Seminar (Inaugural Speaker); Cornell Law and Economics Workshop; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Wharton Public and Labor Economics Seminar (2024)
  • Center for Taxpayer Rights Conference on Transforming Tax Administration; Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity; Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods; Congressional Budget Office; University of Virginia Law and Economics Workshop; Brookings Economic Seminar; Joint Committee on Taxation; White House Interagency Policy Committee on AI and Equity; D.C. Bar Annual Tax Conference; Georgetown Tax Law & Public Finance Workshop; Northwestern Law and Economics Workshop; University of Michigan Law and Economics Workshop; NTA (2023)
  • American Bar Foundation; Berkeley Law, Economics, and Business Workshop, University of Texas Law, Business, and Economics Workshop; Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence; University of Maryland Applied Microeconomics Seminar; CELS (2022)
  • Northwestern Law School; University of Chicago Law School; UC Hastings; Yale Law, Economics, and Organization Workshop; NTA (2021)
  • ASSA; University of Zurich; ETH Zurich; University of Texas Austin Applied Micro Seminar (COVID-19 cancellation); NBER Public Economics Spring Meeting (COVID-19 cancellation); Notre Dame; Virtual Advances in Field Experiments Seminar; Triangle Health Economics Workshop; Junior Tax (2020)
  • Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance; Berkeley Public Finance Seminar; University of Toronto Tax Workshop; Université du Québec à Montréal Economics Department Seminar; Western Economic Association International; Annual Health Economics Conference; NTA; Harvard Law and Economics; Cornell Behavioral Economics and Public Economics Workshops (2019)
  • Columbia Law and Economics; University of San Diego Tax Speaker Series; UVA Tax Conference; Michigan Tax Policy Workshop; Junior Tax; Georgetown Tax Law Workshop; Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Department of the Treasury; NYU Tax Policy Colloquium; Berkeley Law, Economics and Business Workshop; UCLA Tax Policy Colloquium; ALEA; NTA (2018)
  • Tulane Tax Roundtable; Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University; University of Chicago Law and Economics Workshop; Behavioral Law and Economics Conference at Vanderbilt University; Northwestern Tax Colloquium (2017)
  • Loyola (Los Angeles) Tax Policy Colloquium; University of Texas Law and Economics Seminar; Georgetown Tax Law Workshop; Harvard Tax Policy Seminar; Duke Behavioral Economics and the Law Seminar; Duke Tax Policy Seminar; NYU Behavioral Economics and Public Policy Workshop; University of Missouri Symposium on Evaluating Nudge; NTA; CELS (2016)
  • Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Junior Workshop; NTA (2015)
  • Stanford Law School; Yale Law School; Cornell Behavioral Economics Workshop; NTA; ALEA (2014)
  • ALEA; CELS; NTA (2013)
  • Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS); National Tax Association (NTA); American Law and Economics Association (ALEA) (2012)

Works in Progress
  • When Should the Legal System Help Redistribute Income? (with Zachary Liscow), University of Chicago Law Review (symposium contribution) (Forthcoming).
  • The Claiming of Children on U.S. Tax Returns (with Geoffrey Gee, Joseph Gray-Hancuch, Ithai Lurie, and Vedant Vohra), National Tax Journal (Forthcoming).
  • Quantifying the Uncertainty of Imputed Demographic Disparity Estimates: The Dual-Bootstrap (co-P.I., with Benjamin Lu, Jia Wan, Derek Ouyang, and Daniel E. Ho), in Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Statistics for the 21st Century (CRIW) (ed. Randall Akee, Lawrence F. Katz, and Mark Loewenstein), University of Chicago Press (Forthcoming).

Additional Activities

Awards and Grants

  • Donald M. Ephraim Prize in Law and Economics, 2024
  • National Institute of Health Care Management Research Award, 2022
  • Excellence in Reviewing Award, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2021
  • Richard A. Musgrave Prize for best article published in the National Tax Journal, 2020
  • Arnold Ventures research grant, 2020, 2023
  • Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Hoffman-Yee seed grant, 2018
  • National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016

Professional Service

  • National Tax Association: Board of Directors (2023), Program Committee for Annual Conference (2016, 2018, 2019, 2024), Program Co-Chair for Annual Conference (2021)
  • National Tax Journal: Editorial Advisory Board (2023)
  • American Law and Economics Association: Board of Directors (2021 - 2024), Area Organizer for Annual Conference (2020, 2022)
  • NBER Public Economics: Co-Organizer for Fall Meeting (2024), Co-Organizer for Spring Meeting (2021)
  • International Institute of Public Finance: Scientific Committee Member for Annual Conference (2024)

Bar Admissions

Illinois (retired status)