Altuğ Yıldız

This paper uses three decades of U.S. tax credit expansions to show that the EITC largely pays for itself through increased tax revenues and reduced welfare expenditures — but does so more effectively in states and counties with lower poverty, inequality, and unemployment.

Using a 62-country panel over 50 years, this paper finds that income inequality and total factor productivity follow an inverted-U relationship — moderate inequality is associated with higher productivity, but beyond a threshold, further disparity becomes a drag on long-term growth.

This paper examines the anti-corruption reforms accompanying EU accession in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia, finding that while accession was associated with meaningful reductions in bribery, the evidence for downstream effects on income inequality is mixed and country-specific.