Authors

Eric Zwick

Associate Professor of Finance and Fama Faculty Fellow

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

ERIC ZWICK studies the interaction between public policy and corporate behavior, with a focus on fiscal stimulus, taxation and housing policy. His research draws insights from finance and behavioral economics while using a variety of methods: new data, natural experiments, theory and anecdotal exploration. Zwick is particularly interested in the problems that small and medium-sized private firms and new ventures face, from the perspective of owners, investors, managers and workers. A secondary area of interest concerns the role of bounded rationality and imperfect information in the design of policies that promote behavior change. This work focuses on determinants of habit formation in health and workforce productivity settings. Zwick earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in business economics from Harvard University and a B.A. in economics and mathematics with high honors from Swarthmore College. Prior to grad school, he worked as a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research and as a web and software developer for several start-ups and non-profits.

Publications

The Next Business Tax Regime: What Comes After the TCJA

This essay presents the case for a better US business tax regime. First, we provide an overview of the business tax base in the United States and describe how business activity is taxed, with special focus on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). We then review early evidence of the TCJA’s effects on ...

Business Continuity Insurance in the Next Disaster

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an economic shock unparalleled in severity and breadth across the US economy since at least the Great Depression. The spring of 2020 saw unprecedented business closures and revenue declines. The government response was swift and unprecedented in scale. The federal government deployed two novel programs to support small businesses: Paycheck Protection ...