The Law School recently welcomed Lucy Msall, MLS ’23, as the newest addition to its faculty. With a PhD in economics from Chicago Booth and a Master of Legal Studies from the Law School, Msall’s scholarly interests lie primarily in public economics, with a focus on taxation. Although she was appointed to the faculty in July 2025, she spent the past year working in the National Bureau of Economic Research as a post-doctoral fellow in wealth and income inequality.

We recently asked Msall about her completed fellowship, her journey to academia, and her scholarly interests.

You’ve spent many years at the University of Chicago, both as a PhD student and an MLS student in the Law School. What first brought you to Chicago and what made you want to stay?

The University of Chicago is a special intellectual environment. I really love the culture of rigorous debate and free inquiry. I’m also from Chicago, so I love Chicago as a city and feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to work at this world-class institution in my hometown near my family. 

Looking back, was there a particular class, mentor, or research project that shaped your intellectual trajectory?

I’m incredibly grateful to my PhD advisors who gave me so much time and attention over the multi-year process of writing my dissertation. As a law school student, Jacob Goldin’s “Introduction to Federal Income Tax” class definitely set me on my current research agenda. And the “Canonical Ideas in Legal Thought” seminar (which was taught the year I took it by Will Baude and [dean] Adam Chilton) clarified my interest in pursuing legal academia. But I also just love the broad intellectual environment that I saw at the Law School’s workshops and seminars. 

You are trained as an economist but also earned an MLS from the Law School. How has studying both disciplines influenced the kinds of questions you ask and the way you approach research?

Tax policy is a research field that sits very comfortably in the overlap between law and economics. My work is within the mainstream of academic economics, but I am perhaps more interested than your average economist in what economists sometimes call the “institutional details.” I try to do empirical work that is grounded in the methods & approach of economics but to apply those methods to big-picture questions of tax policy and design that lawyers and policymakers would find interesting. 

Much of your work examines how people respond to taxes and government incentives. What drew you to those questions?

My first job after college was as an assistant analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. That work experience initially opened my eyes to how important our tax system is to policy-making -- and how so much of what we often think of as policy that isn’t related to tax is actually happening through the tax code. I continue to find tax research interesting because there are so many hard tradeoffs to the central problem of wanting to raise revenue to fund government programs while also wanting to give people and businesses the freedom to operate and grow the economy. 

You also have many projects that focus on issues with significant public-policy implications. How do you think about the relationship between academic research and real-world policymaking?

One of the reasons I’m particularly excited to be at the Law School is that I think legal academia encourages professors to develop close ties to the policy world. Government institutions like the Treasury Department and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation directly rely on empirical economics research to propose and evaluate policy and it’s been rewarding to see interest from those kinds of institutions in my research. I certainly hope to keep developing relationships in the policy world and to continue learning from people on the government side about how to make my research maximally useful to them.

What courses are you most excited to teach, and what do you hope students take away from them?

I’m excited to teach Intro to Income Taxation this year and International Tax and an as-yet-unplanned seminar next year! I hope students will leave these courses with a solid understanding of the tax system, stronger statutory interpretation skills, and reflections on big picture questions about fairness, policy tradeoffs, and what “income” really means.

You spent the past year as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. What research projects have you been involved with during this fellowship year?

I’ve been finishing up my dissertation work to submit it for publication. I’ve also started new projects about tax incentives that are luring wealthy individuals to move to Puerto Rico, and how different countries decide to tax or not tax the unrealized capital gains of residents who move away.

Are there any new ideas that emerged during your fellowship that you’re excited to bring with you to the Law School?

I’ve recently started several projects related to how governments handle taxes when people move across jurisdictions and that’s made me particularly excited about teaching those topics in International Taxation next year. 

Outside of your academic work, do you have any exciting plans for summer?

I’m very happy to be moving back to Chicago this summer. I can’t wait to be back in Hyde Park going to the 61st street farmer’s market and swimming in the lake!

As you prepare to begin your next chapter on the Law School faculty, what are you most excited about?

I’m looking forward to rejoining the University of Chicago’s vibrant intellectual community and hearing about all the diverse intellectual projects that my colleagues and future students are engaged in.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I would like to encourage more law students, especially public-minded law students, to consider taking a tax class while they’re here! I think many students write it off as dry and technical, but it’s core to so much policymaking. Also: surveys have found that tax lawyers are the happiest kind of lawyers!