Henrik Kleven (born April 28, 1971) is a Danish economist, currently the Lynn Bendheim Thoman, Class of 1977, and Robert Bendheim, Class of 1937, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen in 2003 and has held faculty positions at the London School of Economics and at the University of Copenhagen. Kleven has served in major editorial roles: he was Chief Editor of the Journal of Public Economics (until 2017) and co-editor of the American Economic Review (until 2021). He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and elected Fellow of the Econometric Society. His research combines economic theory and empirical evidence to study the impact and design of public policies, including tax policy, welfare programs, and family policy. He has a separate interest in gender inequality, focusing on the role of child penalties. This work has been published in leading academic journals and is regularly cited in academic and media discussions.The Economist (2018-01-26). "The roots of the gender pay gap lie in childhood". The Economist. Accessed 2025-05-24.The Economist (2024-01-30). "How motherhood hurts careers: A new study measures its impact on women’s employment worldwide". The Economist. Accessed 2025-05-24. It has influenced policy debates in multiple countries.
Research Henrik Kleven’s research links theory and data—often using large administrative datasets from Scandinavian countries—to produce policy-relevant work on taxation, poverty alleviation, tax enforcement, and inequality, especially gender inequality. He is particularly known for his contributions to research on optimal taxation, sufficient statistics, bunching, tax evasion, migration, and child penalties.
Gender Inequality and Child Penalties
Kleven’s research, together with Camille Landais and others, has reframed gender inequality research to focus on the impact of parenthood. They introduced the concept of child penalties—the negative impact of childbirth on women’s labor market outcomes relative to men’s—using administrative data and an event-study method has become the standard in the literature.Kleven, H., Landais, C., & Søgaard, J. (2019). Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(4), 181–209. Available at: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20180010 Kleven’s empirical findings consistently demonstrate that child penalties are large, persistent, and widespread. In Denmark, childbirth is responsible for a long-run gender gap in earnings of about 20%, explaining more than 80% of earnings inequality between men and women. Expanding the analysis to countries around the globe, the Child Penalty Atlas project Kleven, H., Landais, C., & Leite-Mariante, D. (2024). The Child Penalty Atlas. Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming. Available at: https://www.henrikkleven.com/uploads/3/7/3/1/37310663/kleven_landais_leitemariante_res_2024.pdf documents substantial variation across 134 countries, with larger penalties in richer nations than in poorer nations—highlighting the role of economic development and labor market structure. Penalties persist even in countries with generous family policies. Kleven’s papers show that child penalties are driven by parenthood itself—not by biology or comparative advantage. (1) Adoptive mothers face similar penalties to biological mothers, and women with high earnings capacity face similar penalties to those with low earnings capacity,Kleven, H., Landais, C., Posch, J., Steinhauer, A., & Zweimüller, J. (2021). Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation. NBER Working Paper No. 28082. Available at: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28082 contradicting Becker’s specialization theory. (2) Family policies such as parental leave and childcare have short-term impacts, but play a limited role for long-term child penalties. (3) Gender norms play a central role: societies that view caregiving as a maternal responsibility and career as a paternal responsibility have larger child penalties. (4) Cultural persistence is confirmed by Kleven’s 2025 study Kleven, H. J. (2025). The Geography of Child Penalties and Gender Norms: A Pseudo-Event Study Approach. NBER Working Paper No. 30176, Revised April 2025. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30176 of U.S. movers and immigrants, showing that penalties reflect the norms of individuals’ regions of origin. (5) Labor market rigidity further amplifies disparities by penalizing mothers who seek flexibility after childbirth.
Optimal Taxation and Sufficient Statistics Approach Kleven’s research connects economic theory with empirical analysis using the so-called “sufficient statistics” approach. This approach simplifies policy evaluation by relying on a few measurable behavioral responses (“elasticities”) instead of estimating a fully specified structural model. Kleven (2021)Kleven, H. J. (2021). The sufficient statistic approach: A primer. Annual Review of Economics, 13, 55–75. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080219-030457 shows that the validity of this approach rests on three key assumptions: small policy changes, government intervention as the sole market imperfection, and simplifications of preferences and the environment. Under these conditions, welfare impacts and optimal policies can be expressed as simple formulas that depend on just a few elasticities, offering clear guidance to researchers and policymakers. Beyond the general theory, Kleven and co-authors have applied the sufficient statistics approach to several domains. Applications include: (1) the Marginal Cost of Public Funds, MCPF;Kleven, H. J., & Kreiner, C. T. (2006). The marginal cost of public funds: Hours of work versus labor force participation. Journal of Public Economics, 90(10–11), 1955–1973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.03.006 (2) the optimal income taxation of married couples;Kleven, H. J., Kreiner, C. T., & Saez, E. (2009). The optimal income taxation of couples. Econometrica, 77(2), 537–560. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7343 and (3) the optimal taxation of top earners in a world with social externalities.Kleven, H. J. (2025). Externalities and the taxation of top earners. NBER Working Paper No. 33345. https://www.nber.org/papers/w33345
Behavioral Responses to Taxation and Welfare Programs Kleven’s research explores how taxes and welfare programs shape individual behavior—central to designing policies that balance equality and efficiency. His work relies on range of quasi-experimental methods: difference-in-differences, event studies, regression discontinuity and bunching methods, he shows that individual earnings cluster: around tax thresholds, revealing sensitivity to incentives.Kleven, H. J., & Waseem, M. (2013). Using notches to uncover optimization frictions and structural elasticities: Theory and evidence from Pakistan. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(2), 669–723. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjt004Kleven, H. J. (2016). Bunching. Annual Review of Economics, 8, 435–464. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080315-015234 His work has evaluated labor supply and taxable income responses to taxation,Kleven, H. J., & Schultz, E. A. (2014). Estimating taxable income responses using Danish tax reforms. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(4), 271–301. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.6.4.271Kleven, H. J., Kreiner, C. T., Larsen, K., & Søgaard, J. E. (2025). Micro vs Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: The Role of Dynamic Returns to Effort. NBER Working Paper No. 31549. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31549 as well as capital and wealth accumulation responses.Jakobsen, K., Jakobsen, K., Kleven, H. J., & Zucman, G. (2020). Wealth taxation and wealth accumulation: Theory and evidence from Denmark. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(1), 329–388. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz033 In a recent paper, he reappraised the effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on employment rates, showing that the program has had much smaller effects than traditionally thought.Kleven, H. J. (2024). The EITC and the Extensive Margin: A Reappraisal. Journal of Public Economics 236, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.104957
Tax-Induced Migration
Tax-induced mobility challenges the ability of governments to tax top earners and sustain generous welfare models. Kleven’s research documents how income taxes, wealth taxes, and welfare benefits shape mobility at the top and bottom of the distribution. His work has shown that high-income and high-worth individuals respond to income and wealth taxes by relocating across countries.Kleven, H. J., Landais, C., & Saez, E. (2013). Migration and wage effects of taxing top earners: Evidence from the foreigners' tax scheme in Denmark. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1), 333–378. Kleven, H. J., Landais, C., Saez, E., & Schultz, E. A. (2014). Migration and tax competition: Evidence from Denmark. NBER Working Paper No. 20732. Kleven, H. J., Landais, C., Saez, E., & Schultz, E. A. (2024). Taxing superstars: Evidence from global football. American Economic Review, forthcoming. His work also shows that low-income migrants respond to the generosity of welfare benefits when choosing location—the so-called “welfare magnet” effect.Agersnap, S., Jensen, A. S., & Kleven, H. J. (2020). The welfare magnet hypothesis: Evidence from an immigrant welfare scheme in Denmark. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12(4), 527–542. Together, these findings highlight the need to account for cross-border spillovers when designing redistribution.
Tax Evasion and Third-Party Reporting Why do people comply with taxes? Kleven’s research shows that successful enforcement depends critically on the use of third-party information. In a large audit experiment conducted with the Danish tax authorities, Kleven et al. (2011) find near-perfect compliance when income is double-reported by employers or financial institutions, and almost full evasion when income is purely self-reported.Kleven, H. J., Knudsen, M. B., Kreiner, C. T., Pedersen, S., & Saez, E. (2011). Unwilling or unable to cheat? Evidence from a tax audit experiment in Denmark. Econometrica, 79(3), 651–692. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA9113 The high compliance rates of modern economies can be explained by the fact that most income generated is subject to third-party information trails. Building on this, Kleven et al. (2016) frame firms as “fiscal intermediaries” that enable states to raise substantial revenue.Kleven, H. J., Kreiner, C. T., & Saez, E. (2016). Why can modern governments tax so much? An agency model of firms as fiscal intermediaries. Economica, 83(330), 219–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12194 Compliance is also shaped by social incentives: a field experiment in Germany finds that many individuals pay out of intrinsic motivation, and these motivations are not undermined by audit threats (Dwenger et al., 2016).Dwenger, N., Kleven, H. J., Rasul, I., & Rincke, J. (2016). Extrinsic and intrinsic motivations for tax compliance: Evidence from a field experiment in Germany. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8(3), 203–232. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20150083 Together, these results show that institutions—formal enforcement and informal norms—are central to explaining compliance.