J A C O B A. R O B B IN S
PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF
E C O N O M IC S
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
W o r k i n g P a p e r {
The Distribution of Capital Gains in the United States 
New
January 2025. Under review.
Center for Equitable Growth Working Paper
Booming stock, housing, and private business markets have driven large capital gains in the United States, averaging 20% of national income over the past two decades. Using internal IRS tax return data, this paper studies the distribution of these gains, and their contribution to income inequality and tax progressivity. We fnd capital gains to be highly concentrated, with 75.7% fowing to the richest 10% and 45.3% to the top 1%. Capital gains substantially increase inequality, raising the top 1% share of income to 21.0%, compared to 18% in their absence. Due to low realiza-tion levels, effective tax rates on capital gains are only 5%. Accounting for capital gains reduces the progressivity of the tax system, with fat rates across the Haig-Simons distribution. We document evidence of substantial heterogeneity in returns and cap rates across income groups. Richer individuals have higher owner and tenant occupied housing returns, own businesses that sell for higher multiples, and lower property tax rates.
Searching for Neo-Fisher: A Model of Animal Spirit Driven Recessions Updated
Revise and Resubmit. August 2025.
This paper develops a model of recessions caused by fluctuations in optimism or pessimism about future output, i.e. animal spirits. The key assumption is that beliefs are not model-consistent, leading to optimal Keynesian policy --- fiscal and monetary expansion. If feedback between current and expected income is too high, optimal policies reverse in sign, and Anti-Keynesian/Neo-Fisherian policies are optimal, in line with previous literature with rational expectations. The relationship between the states is characterized by a simple diagram, a general equilibrium Keynesian cross, the slope of which reflects the feedback between current and expected income. If feedback is low and the slope of the cross is less than 1, normal Keynesian results hold: greater than 1, Neo-Fisherian results are ascendant.
P u b l i c a t i o n {
The value of private business in the United States Accepted
August 2025
Private companies account for almost half of aggregate sales and profits of the US economy, but valuing them is difficult due to lack of public market data. This paper uses two databases of private business transactions to estimates valuation ratios and aggregate wealth for the four major components of private business wealth: sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, and private C corporations. We estimate aggregate private business wealth of 13.6 trillion in 2017, significantly more than the Financial Accounts estimates but less than the Survey of Consumer Finance.
Kaldor and Piketty's Facts: The Rise of Monopoly Power in the United States
The macroeconomic data of the last thirty years has overturned at least two of Kaldor's famous stylized growth facts: constant interest rates, and a constant labor share. At the same time, the research of Piketty and others has introduced several new and surprising facts: an increase in the financial wealth-to-output ratio in the US, an increase in measured Tobin's Q, and a divergence between the marginal and the average return on capital. In this paper, we argue that these trends can be explained by an increase in market power and pure profits in the US economy, i.e., the emergence of a non-zero-rent economy, along with forces that have led to a persistent long term decline in real interest rates. We make three parsimonious modifications to the standard neoclassical model to explain these trends. Using recent estimates of the increase in markups and the decrease in real interest rates, we show that our model can quantitatively match these new macroeconomic facts.
A Model of Secular Stagnation: Theory and Quantitative Evaluation
With Gauti Eggertsson and Neil Mehrotra.
This paper formalizes and quantifies the secular stagnation hypothesis, defined as a persistently low or negative natural rate of interest leading to a chronically binding zero lower bound. Output-inflation dynamics and policy prescriptions are fundamentally different than in the standard New Keynesian framework. Using a 56-period quantitative lifecycle model, a standard calibration to US data delivers a natural rate ranging from -1.5% to -2%, implying an elevated risk of ZLB episodes for the foreseeable future. We decompose the contribution of demographic and technological factors to the decline in interest rates since 1970 and quantify changes required to restore higher rates.
Medicare Payments and System-level Health Care
American Journal of Health Economics, 2015.
With Katherine Baicker.
Pay for Performance in Medicaid: Evidence From Three Natural Experiments
Health Services Research, 2015.
With Meredith Rosenthal, Mary Beth Landrum, and Eric C. Schneider.
The Spillover Effects of Medicare Managed Care: Medicare Advantage and Hospital Utilization
Journal of Health Economics, 2013.
With Katherine Baicker and Michael E. Chernew.
COVID RESEARCH {
Covid-19 Businesses Reopenings and Consumer Spending
April 2021.
This paper studies if Covid-19 retail and restaurant shutdowns and reopenings were responsible for the dramatic `V' shaped pattern of consumer spending in the United States. We find reopening policies substantially increased spending for categories directly impacted by the laws: a 68.4 p.p. increase in non-essential in-store spending and a 16.7 p.p. increase in full-service indoor dining. For sectors not directly impacted --- essential retail, limited-service restaurants, and online --- we find a limited impact of reopenings. The overall effect is an 9.5 p.p. increase in total retail spending and an 8.6 p.p. increase in restaurant spending. We estimate that retail reopenings are responsible for 26% of the total trough-to-peak recovery in spending, while restaurant reopenings are responsible for 18% of the recovery.
Covid-19 and Real Time Consumer Spending
July 2020.
This paper uses a new real-time data source to study the effect of Covid-19 on consumer spending. The data is representative of aggregate spending trends, closely matching retail and restaurant data from the Census Monthly Retail Trade Survey and Quarterly Service Survey. The onset of Covid-19 in March led to a 20% decline in retail good spending, 50% decline in restaurant spending, and 50% decline in other service spending. Retail spending rose from its lows in April, but restaurant and service spending remains depressed. The pandemic caused a dramatic shift of spending towards home consumption and online spending.
C o n t a c t
E m a i l jake.a.robbins@gmail.com
P R O V I D E N T I A