Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program on Wealth and Income Inequality - Fellows

Sobia Jafry’s research examines the distributional and behavioural effects of tax policy, with a particular focus on capital gains taxation, household finance and income inequality. Prior to her PhD, she spent nearly a decade in the investment industry, managing assets for both a public pension fund and an actively managed equity mutual fund. Drawing on this professional experience, her research combines economic theory with applied econometric methods to study how individuals respond to taxation and financial incentives, and the implications for public policy.

Lucy Msall is a 2025 graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business's PhD in Economics. She also holds a Master of Legal Studies from the University of Chicago Law School. Prior to graduate school, she worked as an academic research assistant and an Assistant Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. Her work studies taxation, regulation, and other fiscal policies.

David Leite is a public economist with a focus on public finance, particularly the design of tax systems. He earned his PhD in Economics from the Paris School of Economics and will join the NBER as a postdoctoral researcher in September 2025. His work has been recognized with the Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize from IIPF, the Young Research Award in Public Finance from the European Tax Observatory, and the Heinz König Award from ZEW.