Organization: PSE-EU TAX OBSERVATORY
Education: PhD
Contract: Fixed-term contract – 24 months
Salary: Commensurate with experience
Location: 48 boulevard Jourdan, Paris 14e
Start date: September 2025
Language: English
Environment
The Paris School of Economics is a private non-profit research foundation. PSE develops economic research of the highest international standard and disseminates the results. It brings together a community of 140 researchers and around 200 PhD students, and offers teaching in Masters, PhD, Summer School and Executive Education programs at the cutting edge of the discipline. Now firmly established as a feature on the global academic landscape, PSE breaks down all kinds of barriers to attain its goal of excellence: it brings together universities and grandes écoles, promotes exchanges between economics and the other social sciences, delivers its scholarship to a broad public, and supports the work of its teams in multiple partnerships with public institutions and private organisations.
The EU Tax Observatory is a research center directed by Gabriel Zucman that conducts, promotes, and disseminates innovative research on taxation, with an emphasis on international tax avoidance, tax evasion, and tax competition. The Observatory contributes to the production of scientific knowledge and to developing proposals to address 21st century tax and inequality challenges.
The Observatory is composed of researchers based in Paris and a network of research fellows located in various countries. It offers a dynamic and collaborative setting for cutting-edge work on taxation, illicit financial flows, and inequality, with access to administrative tax datasets and employer-employee data in collaborations with tax agencies. The Observatory also contributes to global public goods with the creation of new data sources such as The Atlas of the Offshore World, and the public Country-by-Country Reporting database.
In addition to producing academic papers and policy notes, the Observatory regularly organizes academic conferences and public events connecting research to policy. These events bring together various stakeholders including policymakers, politicians, academics, journalists, and civil society.
Position
We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow to join the Illicit Financial Flows and Real Estate Program at EUTO. Researchers in the program conduct research on topics such as financial secrecy, beneficial ownership, money laundering and anti-money laundering policy, illicit trade, state capture and cross-border corruption. The position is funded by the Norwegian Research Council as part of a project on Investigative Economics – led by Matthew Collin – which emphasizes using novel data sources to answer policy-relevant questions in the area of illicit finance.
The postdoctoral fellow will pursue their own research agenda on a topic relevant to the above areas researched by the program. They will also be involved in at least one project with other researchers in the program, to be decided upon before the start date.
Your main tasks and responsibilities will be to:
The postholder will be part of the academic community at PSE which includes a number of high-profile seminar series, access to leading experts in a number of economic fields and academic working groups. The postholder will be part of the vibrant junior faculty at PSE and receive all the support available from senior faculty in the development of his/her research agenda. The goal of this post is to support postholders in their academic career while coauthoring scientific papers that can be published at the highest level.
Profile
The postholder is expected to hold a PhD or be close to completing a doctoral degree in economics by the starting date. We will also consider applicants in fields such as political science, public policy, accounting or a related empirical social science. We are in particular interested in those working on empirical topics related to financial secrecy, beneficial ownership, money laundering and anti-money laundering policy, illicit trade, sanctions, state capture and cross-border corruption, with an emphasis on better forms of measurement or causal identification of policy effects.
French is not a requirement. The postholder will be provided with office space and computer facilities at the Paris School of Economics. The postholder will benefit from the social benefits in force at PSE, i.e. 25 days of annual leave, health insurance, 50% of the cost of public transportation and restaurant vouchers.
Equal Opportunity Employer
We are convinced that the diversity of experiences and backgrounds of our team members enriches our reflections and our work. As part of our inclusive recruitment policy, we strongly encourage candidates from underrepresented background to apply for our job offers if their expertise matches the profile sought. We reaffirm that the selection of candidates will be made exclusively on criteria relating to the position to be filled, and regardless of age, race, gender, skin color, religion, nationality, the person’s sexual orientation or disability.
Applications must be written in English and include a CV, job market paper and cover letter. Two letters of recommendation are required. Please submit your application on Econ Job Market* by April 11th.
Incomplete applications will not be considered. Applications will be reviewed starting April 4th and interviews will be conducted remotely on a rolling basis.
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