Daniel Overbeck
Mailing address:
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
National University of Singapore
469C Bukit Timah Road
Singapore 259772
E-mail:
daniel.overbeck "at" nus.edu.sg
Links:
NUS Website
Twitter
Welcome!
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics (tenure-track) at the National University of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy). I received my PhD from the University of Mannheim in June 2025.
My main research interests are in Public Economics and Development Economics.
Curriculum Vitae
Publications:
The (fiscal) Dividend of Infrastructure: Roads and Revenues in Rwanda
(with Abdou Musonera and Aimable Nsabimana )
Journal of Public Economics, 2026
This paper shows that infrastructure investments enhance local tax outcomes. Drawing on a novel dataset combining information on the location and timing of all road upgrades in Rwanda with 12 years of administrative tax and census records, we estimate large and significant increases in tax revenues in municipalities near to upgraded roads. These effects are driven by firm entry as well as land value appreciation, captured through taxes on rental income at the local level. Finally, we show that while the additional revenues do not fully recover the central government’s initial investment, local municipalities’ revenues more than double within five years.
[Open Access JPubE] [World Bank Policy Research Working Paper]
Place-based policies, structural change and female labor: Evidence from India's Special Economic Zones
(with Johannes Gallé , Nadine Riedel and Tobias Seidel)
Journal of Public Economics, 2024
This paper quantifies the local economic impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that were established in India between 2005-2013. Based on a novel data set that combines census data on the universe of Indian firms with georeferenced data on SEZs, we find that SEZs increased manufacturing and service employment with positive spillover effects up to 10km. This employment gain was paralleled by a decline in local agricultural employment, in particular of women, suggesting that the policy contributed to structural change. We find no evidence for heterogeneous effects between privately and publicly run SEZs or zones with different industry denominations.
[Open Access JPubE] [STEG/CEPR Working Paper] [Video Interview with faculti.net] [VoxDev Blog]
Working Papers:
Bargaining Over Taxes
(with Eliya Lungu)
IGC grant (GBP 10,000)
We show that bargaining over taxes constitutes a central feature of tax compliance in low state capacity environments. Using administrative records from Zambia, we document systematic deviations from predictions of standard models of tax compliance. Taxpayers bunch sharply in dominated regions above tax schedule discontinuities and at round-number payments. These patterns are inconsistent with standard models, but can be explained by bargaining between tax collectors and taxpayers, or which we provide additional evidence from our own taxpayer survey. Finally, we show that allowing for bargaining in standard models of tax compliance leads to Pareto-improvements if state capacity is sufficiently low.
[Download] [CESifo Working Paper] [IGC Blog] [Policy Brief]
Carbon taxation and firm behavior in emerging economies: Evidence from South Africa
(with Johannes Gallé, Rodrigo Oliveira, Nadine Riedel and Edson Severnini)
UNU-WIDER grant (USD 10,000)
This paper provides the first comprehensive evidence on how firms in an emerging economy respond to carbon taxation in the context of an early-phase policy, highlighting how firms adjust when incentives are modest but signals about future regulation are strong. We study the announcement and early implementation of South Africa’s 2019 carbon tax using detailed administrative firm-level data from 2011-2021. Employing a matched difference-in-differences design and event-study models, we trace dynamic firm responses. Contrary to concerns that carbon taxes might hinder growth or employment, we find no negative effects on firm performance or jobs. Leveraging variation in firms’ exposure to the tax through temporary tax-free allowances, we find that firms facing higher effective tax rates increased sales, employment, capital, and capital depreciation in anticipation of the policy, reflecting resolution of regulatory uncertainty and adjustments to mitigate stranded asset risks. While we detect no measurable reduction in emissions - likely due to anticipatory behavior - the results show that early-phase carbon pricing can shape firm behavior without harming economic outcomes, even in low- and middle-income settings.
Taxing FDI in a developing economy: the case of informality
This paper introduces a new model which captures the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on a developing economy with an informal sector. The informal sector evolves endogenously as economic agents choose between working and setting up a firm and whether to do so formally or informally. FDI induces a uniform increase in labor costs but heterogenous productivity increases for domestic formal firms. Accordingly, some of these fi rms may opt for informality with increased FDI. This reduction in the domestic tax base may off set any revenue gains from additional FDI. It is shown that the revenue-neutral tax rate on FDI is decreasing in the government’s efficiency in screening tax avoidance, as more efficient governments are able to attenuate the increase in informality. The empirical analysis supports the key conclusions of the model.
Work in Progress:
Tax Administration and Firm Performance: Evidence from VAT Refund Delays
This paper shows how weak tax administration leads to economic costs for firms in developing countries. We study the case of VAT refund processing in Zambia, where, as we document in a novel dataset, firms wait 700 days for reimbursement on average. Linking our dataset to the universe of tax returns at the firm level, we establish several stylized facts on the pitfalls of refund processing and estimate the economic costs of refund delays for firms. To do so, we rely on an instrumental-variable approach which exploits plausibly exogenous variation in administrative congestion at the time of claiming. The results show that prolonged refund delays significantly reduce firms’ sales, taxable purchases, profits, investment, and employment, consistent with firms facing binding working-capital constraints while awaiting reimbursement. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of tax systems depends not only on statutory design but also on the capacity of tax administrations to implement them
News and upcoming talks:
I will present at the following events: