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Frederik Bennhoff#

Picture of Frederik Bennhoff

Frederik Bennhoff

PhD Candidate in Economics

University of Zurich

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I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Zurich, currently visiting STICERD at the London School of Economics. I hold a MPhil in Economic Research from the University of Cambridge.

I specialize in public finance and in theory and computational methods in macroeconomics. In public finance, I study how end-of-life provisions of capital gains taxation distort portfolio choices. In macroeconomics, I study firm dynamics in macroeconomic models; an upcoming theoretical paper of mine with Igli Bajo and Alessandro Ferrari discusses how the productivity distribution of firms in an economy interacts with cleansing effects of recessions. Currently, I am working to apply sequence-space jacobian (Auclert, Rognlie & Straub) solution methods in heterogeneous firm models, to learn more about how policy interacts with firms along a transitional path.

During 2019-2021 I was an economist (pre-doctoral fellow) at the Center for the Economics of Human Development at University of Chicago for Prof. James J. Heckman. My research from this period was mainly focused on labor economics and the evaluation of social programs.

Research Statement#

I am interested in Macroeconomics and Public Finance. My macroeconomic research can be best summarized as firms in general equilibrium. I am interested in models which capture firm dynamics through the business cycle, and their interaction with fiscal and monetary policy. In public finance, I am working on capital gains and inter-generational taxation. Specifically, I am working to disentangle the effects of end-of-life provisions on portfolio choice and size of inheritances. My doctoral advisors are Florian Scheuer and Felix Kübler.

Publications#

Journal Articles#

  1. The Dynastic Benefits of Early-Childhood Education: Participant Benefits and Family Spillovers [link]
    Frederik H. Bennhoff, Jorge L. García, Duncan Ermini Leaf
    Journal of Human Capital 18 (1), 44-73

    Summary

    We demonstrate the social efficiency of investing in high-quality early-childhood education using newly collected data from the HighScope Perry Preschool Project. The data analyzed are the longest follow-up of any randomized early-childhood education program. Annual observations of participant outcomes up to midlife allow us to provide a cost-benefit analysis without relying on forecasts. Adult outcomes on the participants’ children and siblings allow us to quantify spillover benefits. The program generates a benefit-cost ratio of 6.0 (p-value = .03). Spillover benefits increase this ratio to 7.5 (p-value = .00)

Working Papers & Ongoing Projects#

  1. Not-So-Cleaning Recessions
    Igli Bajo, Frederik H. Bennhoff, Alessandro Ferrari
    Draft in preparation.

    Summary

    Recessions are periods in which the least productive firms in the economy exit, and as the economy recovers, they are replaced by new and more productive entrants. These cleansing effects imply that business cycles generate improvements in the average firm productivity. We argue that this is not sufficient to induce long-run gains in GDP and welfare. We show that these are driven by the intensity of love-for-variety in aggregate production. If the household has CES preferences, recessions do not bring about any improvement in GDP and welfare. If the economy features more love-for-variety than CES, the social planner finds it optimal to subsidize economic activity in recessions to avoid firm exit.

  2. Capital Gains Taxation in Life and Death
    Frederik H. Bennhoff, Florian Scheuer

    Summary

    End-of-life provisions determine the tax base of capital gains, when assets are bequeathed. Up until today, there existed no quantitative model to simulate the effects of changing end-of-life provisions, which jointly takes into account the reactions of households at two margins: (1) composition of the asset portfolio and (2) total size of the bequeathed estate. We build a novel, unifying framework in which one can simulate the consequences of different end-of-life provisions, bequest taxes and other income taxes simultaneously, thereby surpassing the current state-of-the-art at several margins. We do so by recasting the definition of asset portfolios, which makes the household problem theoretically and quantitatively tractable.

  3. Cleansing Dynamics in Economies with Heterogeneity
    Igli Bajo, Frederik H. Bennhoff

    Summary

    We shed light on the interactions of heterogeneous firms, heterogeneous households and different monetary policy regimes in the presence of various shocks. This project aims to design and calibrate a tractable heterogeneous firm model building on Bajo, Bennhoff & Ferrari (2024), and quantitatively characterize its dynamics. To solve our model efficiently, we introduce firm heterogeneity into a recent computational framework (i.e., the Sequence-Space Jacobian).

Employment#

Doktorand (PhD) — University of Zürich (UZH)
Zürich, CH
PhD Student at the Zurich Graduate School of Economics
Advisor: Prof. Florian Scheuer
Aug. 2021 – today

  • PhD Specializations: Recursive Methods, Macro-Finance, Public Finance (UZH), Advanced Machine Learning (ETH Zürich)
  • Workshops: Dynamic Structural Econometrics (Lausanne, 2023), Heterogeneous Agents Macroeconomics (by Auclert, Rognlie, Straub) (Frankfurt, 2024)
  • Teaching: Macroeconomics (PhD), Programming Practices for Research Students (PhD), Advanced Statistics (MSc)
  • Visiting doctoral researcher: London School of Economics (Aug. 2024 – Jan. 2025)


Research Specialist — University of Chicago
Chicago (IL), US
Researcher at the Center of the Economics of Human Development
Sep. 2019 – Jul. 2021

  • Research specialist in public sector research projects for James J. Heckman at the University of Chicago.
  • Statistical life-cycle evaluation of economic costs and benefits of a childhood education programme.


Research Assistant — Center for Economic Studies (CESifo)
Munich, DE
Research assistant at the Center for Macroeconomics and Surveys (Prof. Andreas Peichl)
Jul. 2018 – Sep. 2018


Intern — KPMG Corporate Valuation Services and Consulting
Düsseldorf/Cologne, DE
Company evaluation projects
Mar. 2016 – May 2016

  • Evaluation of non-listed companies using DCF and WACC, joined KPMG HighQ talent pool.

Education#

University of Cambridge (Trinity Hall)
Cambridge, UK
MPhil in Economic Research and Advanced Diploma in Economics
Sep. 2017 – Jul. 2019

  • Graduated MPhil with high distinction and award (GPA: 79/100), and Diploma best in class (1/25), with distinction and award (GPA: 74/100).
  • Specialization in time-series statistics, MPhil dissertation in econometrics (Professor Oliver B. Linton)


London School of Economics
London, UK
Mathematics; General Course Programme (Year abroad)
Sep. 2016 – Jun. 2017

  • GPA: 79/100, distinction level.


University of Münster
Münster, DE
BSc. in Business Administration
Apr. 2013 – Sep. 2016

  • Graduated top 5% of year, specialization & thesis in asset pricing, corporate finance, financial accounting.

Awards and Honors#

Doc.Mobility Studentship
Zürich, CH
Award for an outstanding research project to be pursued abroad (LSE), CHF 30,000
2024


Bateman Scholar
Cambridge, UK
Awarded by Trinity Hall (Cambridge college) for outstanding performance in an M.Phil. programme, £425
2021


Awarded Cambridge Trust Scholar & Trinity Hall Research Studentship
Cambridge, UK
Total award of £33,115 (full stipend for MPhil degree, including cost of living)
2018–2019


Stevenson Prize
Cambridge, UK
Award for best overall performance in the Advanced Diploma in Economics, £500
2018

Publications#

(See “Research”)


Macroeconomics for PhD Students
University of Zürich, Fall 2023

  • Role: Teaching Assistant


Programming Practices for PhD Students
University of Zürich, Fall 2023 & Fall 2024

  • Role: Instructor
  • I have taught Python and R to PhD students. Since 2024, I have included a module Solving Economic Models, which you can access in the resources section of market.clearing


Advanced Statistics for MSc. Students
University of Zürich, Fall 2022

  • Role: Teaching Assistant


Bayesian Econometrics with Python
Online Course

  • I put together some material on state-of-the-art Bayesian models in (macro-)econometrics. You can check it out here