The February, 2017 issue of the OTPR Newsletter has just been published. There are many pictures and updates so be sure to check it out.  

The Newsletter also provides information about our upcoming 30th Anniversary, which begins on July 1, 2017 and runs through June 20, 2018.  Do you have any brilliant ideas we should consider to celebrate this momentous occasion?

Professor Joel Slemrod recently spoke at the International Institute of Public Finance's Annual Congress held in Lugano, Switzerland.  OTPR was well represented at IIPF by our affiliated alumni either presenting or co-authoring papers (including one of our current students)!

Claudio Agostini (2003)                                  Jeffrey Hoopes (2013)

David Agrawal (2012)                                     Wojciech Kopczuk (2001)

Sebastien Bradley (2011)                               Eric Ohrn (2014)

Estelle Dauchy (2007)                                     Daniel Reck (Current PhD)

Naomi Feldman (2004)                                   Nathan Seegert (2013)

Makoto Hasegawa (2013)                              Caroline Weber (2012)

OTPR's third Michigan Tax Invitational (M-TAXI) was held on June 6 - 7, 2014.  More than 55 current and former OTPR-affiliated alumni convened in Ann Arbor for this 1 1/2-day conference. Alumni from 1997 through 2013 included academics in accounting and economics, as well as members of the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas and the Urban Institute.  Global attendees from Chile and Moscow were also in attendance.

The keynote address was given by Professor Roger Gordon, University of California, San Diego.  He formerly held an appointment in the Department of Economics and collaborated on projects with both both Professor Joel Slemrod and Professor Jim Hines.

Laura Kawano (U.S. Department of the Treasury), Sebastien Bradley (Drexel University), Estelle Dauchy (New Economic School, Moscow), Nate Seegert (University of Utah), and Naomi Feldman (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) are happy to return to Ann Arbor and to reconnect.  

Mentoring, networking, and new collaborations are formed during this conference providing rich opportunities for all attendees!

In April 2014, we teamed up with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Center for Business and Economic Research) and the University of Georgia (Department of Economics) to convene leading academic economists and accountants to study competition in subnational governments and urban areas, and present their findings in an open conference. Competition was studied and presented in three highly complementary modules: (1) fiscal (tax) competition, (2) competition in urban areas, and (3) competition in education.   The conference was held on April 25 and April 26 at the prestigious Howard H. Baker, Jr. Centre for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Among the more than 70 people attending were participants from both American and Canadian academic institutions, as well as representatives from the Multistate Tax Commission, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Federal Reserve Board.  A number of the papers presented will be published in an upcoming edition of the National Tax Journal.

In 2008, the CESifo Group and the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) established the Richard Musgrave Visiting Professorship to honor the memory of one of Public Finance's greatest scholars.  This annual prize honors an outstanding scholar in the area of Public Finance.  With this award the prize winner is also named a Distinguished CESifo Fellow.  The award winner is chosen through a formal selection process by the President and Vice President of IIPF, together with the President of the CESifo Group.

The 2014 award winner is Professor James R. Hines Jr., Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and L. Hart Wright Collegiate Professor of Law in the Law School at the University of Michigan.  Professor Hines's research focuses largely on taxation, straddling the border between law and economics.  He has made substantial contributions in the areas of commercial law, corporate law, family law, taxation and estate planning.  He has received several teaching awards, including from Harvard and Princeton universities.  He has written a number of books, devoted in particular to international taxation and taxing multinational corporations.  On April 24, 2014, as part of his visiting professorship, he delivered the sixth Richard Musgrave Lecture on the topic of "International Taxation and National Interests."

Forty-nine OTPR-affiliated alumni, current students, and guests gathered to celebrate with Joel in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 2012.

On June 8-9, 2012, OTPR hosted the second Michigan Tax Invitational.  Papers were divided into these five categories: international, evasion and enforcement, state and local tax issues, rethinking received tax wisdom, and behavioral responses to taxation.  In all, 17 papers were presented and discussed.  Former Michigan PhD students from Universidad de Chile, Drexel University, Federal Reserve Board of Governers, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Williams College, University of Chicago, Northeastern University attended as well as current PhD students and Michigan Faculty.

The Office of Tax Policy Research recently hosted the 67th Annual Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance.  Over 350 people from 30 countries attended this 4-day event that included 5 Keynote Speakers, 75 sessions, and over 250 papers.

To the left is a group photo of conference participants at the Detroit Institute of Arts. To view pictures of the Congress, please click here.

On the second day of the Congress, participants went on an excursion to the Henry Ford Museum and a strolling dinner at the Detroit Institute of Arts. To view pictures of the excursion, please click here.

OTPR, along with the Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at UC-Berkeley and the Fund for Tax Research and John M. Olin Center of Law, Economics, and Business of Harvard Law School, sponsored a workshop in Berkeley, CA during the week of June 21-25, 1999.  This workshop provided an overview of the state of research in the economics and legal literatures on various aspects of international taxation and featured leading American academic tax specialists, including both economists and tax lawyers.  The purpose of the workshop was to stimulate research activity on international tax issues and to provide an opportunity for scholarly communication.

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The Office of Tax Policy Research is proud to announce that our own Mary Ceccanese received the 2010 Candace Johnson Staff Award for Excellence, a University-wide award given by the Office of the Provost to an exemplary staff member.
We know Mary as OTPR’s Coordinator, which she has done with exceptional competence, energy, creativity and good cheer for 22 years. It is not at all an understatement to say that OTPR would not be OTPR without her. What you might not know is that, over this time, Mary has expanded her job to become a change agent and educator, in the university and beyond, about the importance of creating and sustaining connections between the staff and faculty, managers and staff, and various other employee groups. She actively participates in Voices of the Staff, a volunteer-based program offering U-M staff members an opportunity to share ideas and define the campus community issues that matter most to them. She also is involved in the design and delivery of training workshops, mentoring relationships with staff in a variety of units, and the development of original tools for creating positive workplaces. Four years ago, Mary initiated a task force at the Ross School called FAST Connections, which promotes high-quality relationships between faculty and staff.

We all congratulate Mary on this award and are delighted to see her receive this recognition.