Nearly forty years after his untimely death, Stanley Surrey, the renowned Harvard law professor (and Treasury official), remains perhaps the most important and influential tax law scholar in American history. The recent publication of his highly illuminating memoirs offers a convenient occasion...

This is a slightly revised version of a lunch talk that the author gave at the National Tax Association's 46th Annual Spring Symposium on May 12. It addresses, among other topics, why there is so little consensus regarding international tax policy, and what lessons we learn from the recent wave...

Tax rules encouraging excessive debt, complex financial transactions, poorly designed incentive compensation for corporate managers, and highly leveraged home ownership all may have contributed to the financial crisis, but do not appear to have been among the primary causes. Even without a...

The current age of inequality is also an age of extensive tax and related public economics scholarship about inequality. Three prominent aspects of recent research especially stand out. The first concerns empirical measurement of economic inequality, as it has changed over time. The second...