Damian Vergara

Dr. Damian Vergara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in Economics from the Universidad de Chile and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2023). Prior to joining Michigan, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University’s Industrial Relations Section (2023-2024). His research focuses on public finance, labor economics, and policy design, with a particular emphasis on taxation, labor market institutions, and inequality reduction. He is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

Education:

• B.A. and M.A. in Economics, Universidad de Chile
• Ph.D. in Economics, UC Berkeley (2023)

Research interests include:

• Optimal taxation and privacy considerations
• Minimum wage policies and firm wage dynamics
• Discrimination in criminal justice and labor markets
• Spatial inequality and redistribution mechanisms

His recent work explores topics such as firm wage premia distribution, workplace litigiousness impacts, and ethnic prejudice in pretrial detentions. He has contributed to non-refereed publications analyzing U.S. spatial inequality trends and corporate tax incidence models.

Notable affiliations include NBER (Public Economics) and IZA, reflecting his active role in policy-relevant research. His work bridges theoretical economic models with empirical applications, focusing on real-world policy implications.