Stephen Meserve
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smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve
@smeserve.bsky.social
67 followers 73 following 57 posts

Practicing political scientist, hiker, tabletop gamer, etc in Northern Arizona

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Political science 52%
Computer science 14%
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Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Simon Wren‐Lewis, Sanford F. Schram , and 8 more

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 2h
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment.

www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from Norway, 2021-2025 Marius A. K. Ring WORKING PAPER 35854| DOl 10.3386/w35854 ISSUE DATE October 2026 Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times, 2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms. Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…

Reposted by Daniel W. Drezner, Frank C. Thames, Greg Linden , and 1 more

jessefelder.com
Jesse Felder @jessefelder.com · 1d
‘If AI doesn’t deliver on its promise then we face a double blow to growth: because AI didn’t expand our productive capacity as hoped, and because other investments which might have didn’t take place.’ www.ft.com/content/bf40...

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

abhw.bsky.social
Alton B.H. Worthington @abhw.bsky.social · 1d
Gotta wonder how much of this is an additonal, initially unmodeled (and unspoken, for obvious reasons) decline in tax enforcement capacity.
bbkogan.bsky.social Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 1d
The Big Beautiful Bill cut corporate income taxes pretty substantially. Corporate tax revenues came in even lower than expected.
corporate tax revenue was at around 1.7% of GDP when BBB was enacted. Now it's down to 1.2% of GDP.

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Steven Heydemann, David Brady , and 15 more

stephenvaisey.com
Stephen Vaisey 🇺🇦 @stephenvaisey.com · 2d
BTW this means no funding for GSS, ANES, or PSID. GSS 2026 is in the field now, but then it looks like that's it. Devastating for social science.
dangaristo.bsky.social Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 2d
NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light.

My reporting:
‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research
Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
www.science.org

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Valerie M. Delmotte, Lisa W. Fazio , and 33 more

dangaristo.bsky.social
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 2d
NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light.

My reporting:
‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research
Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
www.science.org