Profile Overview

I hold the position of Senior Research Scientist at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER). My research programme involves quantitative approaches to welfare economics, in particular income inequality, income distribution dynamics, taxation, social policy and social protection, social mobility, environmental policy and health. A key theme in my work is understanding the social, economic, and policy drivers of inequality.

My main interests are in the development and application of policy microsimulation models and the quantitative analysis of large data sources (administrative, survey) to aid the design, evaluation and improvement of public policy.

Infrastructure development

I have been leading several international projects focused on developing a cutting-edge modelling capacity to understand the drivers of distributional outcomes such as inequality, while contributing to LISER’s dual mission of academic excellence and societal impact. My research builds upon a decade of developmental research conducted in international partnership and funded by various sources, such as the European Commission and the National Research Fund in Luxembourg (FNR).

The focus of this developmental research has been building a scalable modelling infrastructure for social, economic, and environmental policy, with a particular focus on assessing the impact of crises such as the Financial, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Cost of Living and the Climate Crisis on wellbeing. This infrastructure has been initially applied to understand the drivers of differences in household disposable income inequality between countries. Over time, this modelling framework has generated a rich seam of research with applications across countries (EU, India, China, Indonesia), across time (EU, Australia, China,) and across policy areas (heath, inflation, environment, spatial inequality). This resulted in a strong international team, composed of collaborators with different seniority levels from over 10 countries and 3 continents.

These efforts have resulted in tangible outputs in terms of infrastructure development, high-quality publications and societal impact. Selected outputs:

• The development of an innovative income dynamics infrastructure in collaboration with the Inspectorate of Social Security in Luxembourg (IGSS) relying on large-scale administrative data to investigate the trends in earnings inequality in Luxembourg during 20 years of rapid economic growth, industrial redevelopment and massive inflow of foreign workers.

Selected publication: Sologon, D., & Van Kerm, P. (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society, 2018). Modelling earnings dynamics and inequality: foreign workers and inequality trends in Luxembourg, 1988-2009)

https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/article/181/2/409/7070009

• The development of an Income Generation Model (IGM), which allows us to look at markets interacting with policy, building on the pan-European tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD. We have a proof of concept via several publications that applied the model to understand the drivers of differences in household disposable income inequality between countries and across time in several projects that involved international collaborations.

Selected publication: Sologon, D., Van Kerm, P., Li, J., & O'Donoghue, C. (Journal of Economic Inequality, 2021). Accounting for Differences in Income Inequality across Countries: Tax-benefit Policy, Labour Market Structure, Returns and Demographics

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10888-020-09454-7

The extension of the infrastructure to other policy areas, for example:

• Nowcasting the distributional impact of the COVID-19 crisis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed a microsimulation-nowcasting model to help understand and predict the income distribution implications of the COVID-19 emergency in “near-real” time with immediate use to policy makers in Ireland and Luxembourg. We won the 2020 Miriam Herderman O’Brien Prize awarded by the Foundation for Fiscal Studies (Ireland) for our contribution made to understand the distributional implications of the COVID-19 crisis and the policy responses.

Selected publication: Sologon, D., O’Donoghue, C., Kyzyma, I., Li, J., Linden, J., & Wagener, R.  (Journal of Economic Inequality, 2022). The COVID-19 Resilience of a Continental Welfare Regime - Nowcasting the Distributional Impact of the Crisis.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10888-021-09524-4

• Distributional Impact of the Cost of Living Crisis and the Energy Transition

Motivated by the emergence of the recent Cost of Living Crisis, we have developed a scalable microsimulation infrastructure to evaluate the distributional and welfare impacts of price changes and mitigation measures in Europe.  

Selected publication: Sologon, D.M., O’Donoghue, Kyzyma, I., Loughrey, J & J. Linden Distributional Impact of Soaring Prices in Europe (Review of Income and Wealth, 2025).  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/roiw.70010

• Distributional Impact of the Environmental Policy

Building on the consumption infrastructure, we are currently developing a scalable microsimulation infrastructure to assess the distributional impact of environmental policies and potential mitigation policies to compensate households comparatively across countries to support the energy transition both in Luxembourg and abroad.

Selected publication: Linden, J., O’Donoghue, C., & Sologon, D. M. (Energy Policy, 2024). The many faces of carbon tax regressivity - Why carbon taxes are not always regressive for the same reason. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421524002301?via%3Dihub

• Spatial Inequality in Cross-Border Commuting Regions in Europe

I currently lead the development of a novel spatial cross-border microsimulation model that explores disposable income disparities in European border regions and the roles of tax-benefit policies, labour mobility, commuting, and housing in shaping spatial inequalities.

Our research has contributed to national and European policy debates, with presentations at the European Commission and input to flagship publications such as the OECD Employment Outlook.

Academic background, positions and roles

I earned my PhD in Economics in 2010 from Maastricht University, The Netherlands, funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship. During my PhD, I had a Visiting Research Fellowship at Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School of Government, The Wiener Center for Social Policy. I was awarded the Marie Curie Post-Doc Fellowship in 2010 to fund my research agenda on earnings dynamics and microsimulation.

I joined LISER as a Research Economist in 2013, after having worked as an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. I was appointed the Head of the "Income, Wealth, and Poverty" Unit in the Living Conditions Department in 2017 and the Interim Director of the Living Conditions Department between October 2018 and February 2019. 

Publications, teaching and supervision

I have authored over 40 academic publications, book chapters, and policy reports tackling critical challenges such as the financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, and environmental policy.

I have supervised over 19 Master and 7 PhD students (3 completed, 4 ongoing) at Maastricht University, University of Luxembourg, Tilburg University, and National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). I have extensive teaching experience at Maastricht University and University of Mauritius.

I obtained a "Full Authorization" to supervise PhD projects at University of Luxembourg in 2017.

Professional Service and Networks

• Member of several PhD Evaluation Committees at Maastricht University, University of Antwerp, University of Luxembourg, NUIG and University of Iceland.
• Member of the Advisory Board of the UNICEF Report Card 12 “Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries in 2015.
• Treasurer of the Board of the International Microsimulation Association between 2019-2023.
• Member of the Selection Committee of the Aldi Hagenaars Memorial Award - LIS
• Member of the Board of the International Microsimulation Association
• Member of the Perceptions of Inequality Research Programme, London School of Economics --  International Inequalities Institute.
• Country team leader for Luxembourg in the ESFRI 2021 Roadmap Project “Growing Up In Digital Europe: EuroCohort” (GUIDE), which was selected among the research infrastructures to benefit from a €4.1 billion investment. GUIDE is Europe’s first comparative birth cohort survey, aiming to support the development of social policies for the enhancement of the wellbeing of children, young people and their families across Europe.

Personal

I am married and I am the parent of two boys born in 2013 and 2016. I have dual citizenship Luxembourgish and Romanian. Languages: English, Romanian, French, Luxembourgish.