Professor Joel Slemrod has embarked on a European journey.  Please see the log below for details.

09/04/2014 -- Presented the Keynote address at a seminar held in Helsinki, Finland and entitled "Casting Light on the Shadow Economy: A Field Experiment Approach."

09/06/2014 -- Presented at a conference entitled "Inequality -- Measurement, Trends, Impacts and Policies" sponsored by the United Nations University and held in Helsinki, Finland.

More photos of both the Subnational Government Competition and M-TAXI conferences can be found in the July issue of the OTPR newsletter.  In addition, we have started a new feature recognizing achievements of OTPR-affiliated alumni; please

Everyone seems to agree that it's a good idea to place tax reform at the heart of a package of policies to stave off the fiscal cliff and address the long-term fiscal imbalance.  But what can it accomplish other than raising revenue without raising tax rates?  One set of lessons comes from the consequences of the last major income tax reform in the United States, the Tax Reform Act of 1986.  In a survey article published in the 1997 Journal of Economic Literature, Alan Auerbach and Joel Slemrod investigated this issue.  Read what

While policy makers struggle with identifying and enacting the appropriate short-term policy response to the recent financial crisis and economic downturn, both academics and policy makers are examining the causes of the crisis and what lessons this might bring to bear on longer-term policy. With near unanimity attention to both the causes and appropriate long-term policy response has focused on the financial sector, although fiscal policy, including tax policy, has certainly figured prominently in countries’ short-term policy response to the economic contraction.