Corporate Social Responsibility

Marketing literature shows a positive correlation between CSR and perceived product quality. In a CESifo Working Paper (4962), Tomer Blumkin and his co-authors examine the role of CSR as a mechanism for private provision of public goods and argue that corporations use CSR to signal high product quality. They analyse the tax policy implications and call for a re-examination of the subsidies offered to corporations engaged in CSR.

Tomer Blumkin's main line of research focuses on the normative issue of the optimal design of the tax and transfer (welfare) system. Other fields of interest include law and economics, labour economics and behavioural public economics. In his research Mr Blumkin addresses highly relevant policy issues that lie at the core of public discourse, including, inter-alia, the use of racial profiling for law enforcement, the use of affirmative action policy to enhance re-distribution, the optimal design of user-interface (UI) systems, the optimal design of child benefits, the role of welfare stigma, the effect of individuals' misperception of taxes on labour supply decisions, the role of labour migration in shaping the design of optimal tax and transfer systems against the backdrop of tax competition and the effect of adverse selection in the labour market on policy design with a special focus on mandatory parental leave rules.

Tomer Blumkin holds a PhD from Tel-Aviv University and is currently Associate Professor (with tenure) at Ben-Gurion University. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan at the University of California at San Diego. Mr Blumkin is a CESifo Research Network Fellow and has co-authored several CESifo Working Papers.