Sebastian Blesse is a researcher at the department of Corporate Taxation and Public Finance at ZEW Mannheim and a PhD candidate at the University of Frankfurt. He studied international economics with a focus on public finance and econometrics at the Universities of Göttingen and Antwerp. His research interests lie in public finance, political economy and applied econometrics. In addition, within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 884 "The Political Economy of Reforms", he studies the decision-making behavior of political decision-makers.