Nathan’s PhD research focused on intergenerational mobility—the extent to which economic outcomes pass from parents to children. Building on the work of past scholars, he worked with the ATO to build Australia’s first intergenerational tax dataset. His research has been published in leading economics journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature and American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Labour Economics and the Economic Record. In 2024 he received the Young Economist award from the Economics Society of Australia.

Prior to his PhD, Nathan worked in Treasury in a variety of roles across social and tax policy, including as a Departmental Liaison Officer in the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer’s Office. On returning, Nathan played a central role in establishing its microdata units as a founding Director. Nathan is now Assistant Secretary and Chief Data Officer at the Treasury and has continued his academic work with a part-time appointment at the Australian National University and, more recently, the University of Technology Sydney.

Supervisor: Professor Robert Breunig

Publications

• Breunig R, Deutscher N and To H T (2017) ‘The relationship between immigration to Australia and the labour market outcomes of Australian-born workers’. Economic Record, 93(301):225-276.
• Breunig R and Deutscher N (2018) ‘Baby bonuses: natural experiments in cash transfers, birth timing and child outcomes’. Economic Record, 94(304)1-24.
• Deutscher, N (2018) Empirical Essays in Intergenerational Mobility and Early Childhood Human Capital [PhD Thesis], The Australian National University, Canberra.
• Andrews D, Deutscher N, Hambur J and Hansell D (2019) ‘Wage growth in Australia: Lessons from Longitudinal microdata’. Treasury Working Paper 2019-04, The Treasury, Canberra.
• Deutscher N (2019) ‘Job-to-job transitions and the wages of Australian workers’, Treasury Working Paper 2019-07. The Treasury, Canberra.
• Andrews D, Deutscher N, Hambur J and Hansell D (2020) The scarring effects of downturns on young workers, VOX-EU CPER, London.
• Deutscher, N (2020) ‘Place, peers, and the teenage years: long-run neighbourhood effects in Australia’. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 12(2):220-249.
• Andrews D, Deutscher N, Hambur J and Hansell D (2020) ‘The career effects of labour market conditions at entry’. Treasury Working Paper 2020-01, The Treasury, Canberra.
• Deutscher N and Mazumder B (2020) ‘Intergenerational mobility across Australia and the stability of regional estimates’. Labour Economics, 6, Article 101861.
• Deutscher N (2020) ‘What drives second generation success? The roles of education, culture, and context’. Economic Inquiry, 58(4):1707-1730.
• Deutscher N and Mazumder B (2021) ‘Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches’. Working Paper, No 2021-09, Federal Reserve Ban of Chicago, Chicago.