Benjamin B. Lockwood

Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy

Contact Information

Primary Email:
ben.lockwood@wharton.upenn.edu

office Address:
317 Dinan Hall (formerly Vance Hall)
3733 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: public finance, optimal taxation, inequality, behavioral economics

Overview

Benjamin Lockwood is an associate professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. His research specializes in public economics, with a focus on issues of optimal taxation, inequality, and behavioral economics. He has studied the use of taxes both for redistribution and as an instrument to change behavior. Recent work explores the use of taxes to discourage harmful or unhealthy behavior, to encourage talented workers to choose socially beneficial professions, and to encourage and support work while counteracting behavioral biases.

Professor Lockwood did his graduate work at Harvard University. He is a Co-Editor at the Journal of Public Economics, and his research has been published in leading journals including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Research

For information about my research, please visit my personal website.

Peter Lugthart, Benjamin B. Lockwood, Arthur van Benthem (Working), Optimal Shared Micromobility Taxes with Distributional Concerns. Abstract
Dockless, shared e-bikes and e-scooters are a rapidly-growing segment of the local transportation market despite being taxed at higher rates per mile of travel than many conventional transportation modes, including motor vehicles. This paper asks what the optimal tax rate for shared bikes and e-scooters would be when accounting for environmental externalities, internalities caused by biased beliefs about accident risk, and redistribution. We derive a sufficient-statistics model that describes how optimal tax rates depend on both extensive-margin (number of trips) and intensive-margin (duration of trips) demand responses to price changes, as well as the income of bike and e-scooter users, internalities, and net externalities relative to other travel modes. We estimate the parameters of this model using trip-level data from a large bike and e-scooter company, and find that in many U.S. cities, use of its vehicles is concentrated among low-income individuals. A nationwide dataset of emergency department admissions shows that e-scooter use generates substantial social costs in terms of healthcare expenditures and lost quality of life due to injury. The optimal tax weighs these costs against environmental benefits and redistributive concerns.

Teaching

BEPP 6110 (previously MGEC 611): Microeconomics for Managers: Foundations (MBA)

BEPP 6120 (previously MGEC 612): Microeconomics for Managers: Advanced Applications (MBA)

BEPP 9330: Public Economics (PhD)

Past Courses

BEPP6110 - Microeconomics for Managers
This course covers microeconomic foundations for understanding business decision-making. The first unit, “Operating a Firm,” covers demand estimation, cost minimization, and pricing with market power. Unit two, “Markets and Equilibrium,” covers supply and demand, market equilibrium, taxes and tax incidence, and externalities. Unit three presents an introduction to game theory, including simultaneous-move and sequential games. Students are expected to have mastered these materials before enrolling in the second-quarter course, Microeconomics for Managers: Advanced Applications.
BEPP9110 - Empirical Public Policy
This course examines econometric research on a variety of topics related to public policy, with the goal of preparing students to undertake academic-caliber research. The course is not an econometrics or statistics course per se; rather, it focuses on research designs with observational data and how econometric techniques are applied in practice. The course aims to train students to do applied economic research that involves measuring effects of theoretical or practical interest. It proceeds in two major parts. The first part examines endogeneity and inference about causal relationships, instrumental variables methods and critiques, and panel data methods. The second part of the course addresses 'structural' econometric modeling. Topics covered in this part include sorting and selection, entry models, and counterfactual analyses of policy changes. The course proceeds by analyzing, in detail, approximately 24 well-known empirical research papers in applied economics or related fields. These include public economics and tax policy, labor economics, law and economics, health care policy, industrial organization and competition, transportation demand and policy, and others.
BEPP9330 - Public Econ: Social Ins
The first part of this course will examine the rationale for and economic impact (e.g. on saving, labor supply, etc.) of social insurance programs such as social security, unemployment insurance and disability insurance. The next major part of the course will explore these same issues for government interventions in health insurance markets. The course will then cover research on public goods, externalities, fiscal federalism, and econmic stimulus (including the government's recent response to the "Great Recession") before proceeding to an exploration of the government's role in K-12 and high education. Both theoretical and empirical evidence will be covered along with a mix of classic studies and more cutting-edge research. Throughout the course we will discuss the tradoffs - for example between the protection and distortion of social insurance programs -- that influence government's optional role. While the focus will be on evidence from the U.S., some research from other industrialized and developing countries will also be covered.
BEPP9950 - Dissertation
Dissertation