Thank you for visiting! I’m an applied economist currently finishing my Ph.D. at the Department of Economics at the University of Bern. From September 2023 to March 2024, I was a visiting researcher at the Wharton School at UPenn.
I am passionate about public and health economics and try to understand households’ consumption and dietary choices. You can download my Resume and academic CV here.
I am on the Job Market 2024/2025.
Job Market Paper
The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree: Intergenerational Persistence of Dietary Habits
[ Download ] with Martina Pons (Revise & Resubmit, The Review of Economics and Statistics)
Inadequate diets harm individual health, generate substantial healthcare costs, and reduce labor market income. Yet, the determinants of unhealthy eating remain poorly understood. This paper provides novel evidence on the intergenerational transmission of dietary choices from parents to children by exploiting unique grocery transaction records matched with administrative data. We document a strong intergenerational persistence of diet that exceeds income transmission across all measures we consider. At the same time, substantial heterogeneities in the persistence of diet indicate that the socioeconomic background and location of children may be crucial to fostering beneficial eating habits and breaking unhealthy ones. We discuss potential mechanisms and show in a counterfactual analysis that only 10% of the intergenerational persistence in diet can be explained by the transmission of income and education. In line with these results, we introduce a habit formation model and argue that the formation of dietary habits during childhood and their slow alteration are key drivers of our findings.
Working Papers
[ Abstract | Download ] (Reject & Resubmit, Regional Science and Urban Economics)
Cross-border shopping allows consumers from high-price countries to access a greater variety of goods at lower prices in nearby foreign markets. However, this activity can reduce domestic tax revenues, lower sales, and shift consumption away from local retailers. Leveraging the natural experiment of Switzerland’s COVID-19-induced border closure, I explore the unequal socioeconomic benefits of cross-border shopping. Using rich transaction data for 750,000 households linked with administrative records, I find an additional temporary 10.9% increase in domestic grocery expenditures in border regions. Furthermore, the benefits of cross-border shopping are heterogeneous, with large households and those with lower incomes being particularly likely to shop abroad. I use these findings to calculate an annual reduction of domestic grocery sales of 1.5 billion Swiss francs due to cross-border shopping, equivalent to 3.8% of total sales. These findings underscore the need for nuanced policy approaches that address the spatial frictions and distributional impacts of cross-border shopping.
Spatial Frictions in Retail Consumption
[ Abstract | Download ] with Maximilian von Ehrlich and Tobias Seidel
This paper analyzes spatial consumption frictions by estimating the causal effect of store openings on individual shopping behavior. To this end, we combine unique household-store-linked transaction data with administrative data on income and other socio-demographics. Our findings reveal that spatial frictions significantly influence shopping behavior, with the distance elasticity of expenditures and number of visits being approximately 0.15. Our estimates suggests that consumption areas extend to about 10-20 minutes of travel time, depending on household type. Traditional gravity estimates are shown to be considerably biased due to the endogenous nature of store locations. By combining distance elasticities with a simple model of shopping behavior, we derive store-specific attraction parameters and compute a measure of local grocery market access. Market access varies significantly across different locations, and consistent with spatial equilibrium theory, this variation is reflected in local rents. Consumption frictions are more pronounced for older and smaller households and vary with income, primarily in non-urban areas. Overall, spatial variations in market access are more significant than spatial dispersion in income. Combined with the positive correlation between income and market access, this suggests an important role for real income disparities.
[ Abstract | Download ] with Maximilian von Ehrlich
This paper investigates two areas of e-commerce adoption. First, we study how the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures shaped online grocery shopping adoption in Switzerland. Second, we analyze the role of close family ties in accelerating e-commerce diffusion. Using a comprehensive dataset of household-level transactions at the nation's largest retailer matched to administrative registers, we document a substantial increase in online expenditures. This shift is heterogeneous: younger and larger households, as well as those with limited local store access, are particularly responsive. Moreover, using a stringency index, we find that stricter mitigation policies intensify online usage. We also highlight strong intergenerational peer effects: within multi-generational families, when one generation adopts online shopping, the other is one to two times more likely to adopt as well. Our findings highlight both the policy sensitivity of digital market penetration and the social dynamics that accelerate technology diffusion in retail.
Does new housing supply benefit the poor? Evidence from moving chains
with Lukas Hauck
Other Writing
Food for Thought - Consumer Mobility and Nutritional Choices (Thesis)
[ Abstract | Link ]
This thesis includes three papers investigating different dimensions of consumer behavior in Switzerland within the fields of urban and health economics: eating patterns within families across generations, consumer mobility and grocery market access within cities, and shopping trips across national borders. Chapter One, titled The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree: Intergenerational Persistence of Dietary Habits, studies the intergenerational persistence of healthy eating patterns. Chapter Two, titled Cross-Border Shopping: Evidence from Household Transaction Records, analyzes the consumers’ response to the COVID-19-induced national border closure in Switzerland. Chapter Three, titled Spatial Frictions in Retail Consumption, exploits supermarket openings to estimate distance decay functions and incorporates them into a simple framework of spatial shopping. Addressing these topics contributes to (i) the design of effective public health interventions and (ii) land-use restrictions and urban planning that account for the complexities of spatial consumer behavior.
Arbeit und Kapital in Zeiten der Wissensgesellschaft (in German)
[ Link ] with Guido Baldi
Firmenersparnisse und der Arbeitsanteil am Einkommen (in German)
[ Link ] with Guido Baldi
