108th Annual Conference Proceedings, 2015

Boston, MA

Presidential Address

Alan J. Auerbach, 2015 Presidential Address

  1. November 19, 2015

    1. Fiscal Policy Analytics of Tax Wedge Reduction, Financial Transactions Tax and Tax Treaty Shopping

      1. Pietro Tommasino (Bank of Italy), The Stock Market Effects of a Securities Transaction Tax: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From Italy
      2. Maarten van ‘t Riet (CPB Netherlands Economic Policy Analysis) and Arjan Lejour (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis), Profitable Detours: A Network Analysis of Treaty Shopping
    2. Housing Markets During the Recent Boom/Bust Cycle: Implications for Labor Outcomes and Public Finance

      1. Ron Cheung (Oberlin College), Chris Cunningham (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) and Stephan Whitaker (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland), Household Debt and Local Public Finances
      2. Chris Cunningham (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta), The Role of Housing Equity for Labor Market Activity
      3. Gregory Burge (University of Oklahoma) and lingxiao zhao (University of Oklahoma), Housing Wealth, Property Taxes and Labor Supply Among the Elderly
    3. Local Taxation and Urban Form: Research From Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Scholars

      1. David Albouy (University of Illinois), The Distribution of Urban Land Values: Evidence From Market Transactions
      2. Robert Wassmer (California State University, Sacramento), Property Taxation, Its Land Value Component, and the Generation of “Urban Sprawl”: The Needed Empirical Evidence
    4. Topics in Business Taxation

      1. Jacob Nussim (Bar-Ilan University), Taxation and Innovation
    5. Topics in Political Economy

      1. Mark Dincecco (University of Michigan) and Ugo Troiano (University of Michigan), Broadening the State: Policy Responses to the Introduction of the Income Tax
      2. Michael Conlin (Michigan State University), Differential Impacts of Local Tax Referenda
    6. Business Taxation and Big Data

      1. Ben Lockwood (University of Warwick), VAT Notches
    7. Macroeconomic Policy and Tax Policy Interactions

      1. Hautahi Kingi (Cornell University) and Kyle Rozema (Cornell University), The Mortgage Interest Deduction Lessens the Ability to Conduct Monetary Policy
      2. Warren Hrung (Bank for International Settlements), Forward Guidance in Tax Policy
      3. Christine Dobridge (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton), Fiscal Stimulus and Firms: A Tale of Two Recessions
    8. Charitable Giving of High-Income Households

      1. Brian Galle (Boston College), Law and the Problem of Restricted Spending Philanthropy
    9. Inside Corporate Structure and Decision Making

      1. Harald Amberger (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Eva Eberhartinger (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and Matthias Kasper (Vienna University of Economics and Business), The Role of Tax Rate Based Decision Heuristics in Tax Planning Through Intra-Group Financing
      2. James Chyz (University of Tennessee) and Fabio Gaertner (University of Wisconsin-Madison), The Role of Taxes in Forced CEO Turnover
    10. Macroeconomic Modeling of Tax Policy

      1. Jon Bakija (Williams College) and Tarun Narasimhan (International Monetary Fund), Effects of the Level and Structure of Taxes on Long-Run Economic Growth: What Can We Learn From Panel Time-Series Techniques?
    11. Tax Enforcement Policy in Practice

      1. Robert Inman (Finance Department, Wharton School), An Experimental Evaluation of Notification Strategies to Increase Property Tax Compliance
    12. New Perspectives on Optimal Tax Policy #1

      1. Helmuth Cremer (University of Toulouse), Jean-Marie Lozachmeur (Toulouse School of Economics) and Kerstin Roeder (University of Augsburg), Household Bargaining, Spouses’ Consumption Patterns and the Design of Commodity Taxes
      2. Paweł Doligalski (European University Institute) and Luis Rojas (European University Institute), Optimal Redistribution With a Shadow Economy
      3. Sebastian Kessing (University of Siegen), Vilen Lipatov (Goethe University Frankfurt) and Malte Zoubek (University of Siegen), Optimal Taxation Under Regional Inequality
    13. Tax Incentives, Frictions, and Inattention

      1. Tuomas Kosonen (VATT Institute for Economic Research) and Tuomas Matikka (VATT Institute for Economic Research), Unwilling, Unable or Unaware? The Role of Different Behavioral Factors in Responding to Tax Incentives
    14. Governance and Taxes

      1. Andrew Bird (Carnegie Mellon University) and Stephen Karolyi (Carnegie Mellon University), Governance and Taxes: Evidence From Regression Discontinuity
    15. Local Public Finance Abroad

      1. Désirée Christofzik (University of Siegen) and Sebastian Kessing (University of Siegen), Does Fiscal Oversight Matter?
      2. Daniel Da Mata (IPEA) and Guilherme Resende (IPEA), Changing the Climate for Banking: The Economic Effects of Credit in a Climate-Vulnerable Area
    16. Property Taxes and Property Values

      1. Ping Zhang (Fudan University) and Yilin Hou (Syracuse University), The Dynamics of Housing Price and Land Price in Urban Versus Rural Contexts
      2. David Merriman (University of Illinois), What Determines the Level of Business Property Taxes?
      3. Sutirtha Bagchi (Villanova University), Does the Strength of Incentives Matter for Elected Officials? A Look at Tax Collectors
    17. Taxation and Social Policy

      1. Del Wright Jr. (Valparaiso University Law School), Improperly Burdened: The Uncertain and Sometimes Unfair Application of Tax Penalties
    18. Corporate Tax Evasion in Latin America

      1. Pierre Bachas (University of California, Berkeley), Not(ch) Your Average Tax System: Corporate Taxation in a Middle Income Country
      2. Claudio Agostini (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez), Small Firms Tax Regimes and Presumptive Taxes in Chile: Tax Avoidance and Equity
    19. New Perspectives on Optimal Tax Policy #2

      1. Florian Scheuer (Stanford University) and Ivan Werning (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), The Taxation of Superstars
    20. Elasticity of Taxable Income #2

      1. Katharina Jenderny (Umeå University) and Clive Werdt (FU Berlin), The Elasticity of Taxable Income at the Very Top
      2. Joerg Paetzold (University of Salzburg and Institute for Advanced Studies), Bunching in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities: Real and Reporting Responses of Wage Earners to a Rigid Kink
    21. Taxation and Household Labor Supply

      1. Shantanu Bagchi (Towson University), Can Removing the Tax Cap Save Social Security?
    22. Tax Preferred Retirement Savings Accounts

      1. Sebastian Devlin-Foltz (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), Alice Henriques (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) and John Sabelhaus (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), The Evolution of Retirement Wealth
    23. Local and Individual Responses to Federal Subsidies

      1. David Coyne (UCSD), Federal Tax Policy and Local Revenue Response
    24. Fiscal Federalism and Fiscal Competition

      1. Axel von Schwerin (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) and Carolin Holzmann (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg), Economic Integration and Local Tax Mimicking
      2. Timothy Goodspeed (Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY), Absorbing Shocks: The Role of Rainy Day Funds and Transfers in a Fiscal Union
      3. William Hoyt (University of Kentucky), The Assignment and Division of the Tax Base in a System of Hierarchical Governments
    25. Sales Taxes

      1. David Agrawal (University of Kentucky) and William Fox (University of Tennessee), Sales Taxes in an E-Commerce Generation
      2. Steven Sheffrin (Tulane University) and Anna Johnson (Tulane), The Success of SNAP (Food Stamps) and the Desirability of Taxing Food
      3. Andre Barbe (US International Trade Commission) and George Zodrow (Rice University), Efficiency Gains From Comprehensive Sales Tax Reform
    26. Building Tax Enforcement Capacity

      1. Anders Jensen (London School of Economics), Rise of Employees and Growth in Tax Capacity
    27. Firm Taxation and Investment

      1. Li Liu (University of Oxford) and Michael Devereux (University of Oxford), Incorporation for Investment
      2. Irem Guceri (University of Oxford), Will the Real R&D Employees Please Stand Up? Effects of Tax Breaks on Firm Level Outcomes
    28. Taxation, Consumption, and Household Expenditures

      1. Naveen Singhal (University of Illinois at Chicago), The 2011 Payroll Tax Cut and Household Spending – Evidence From a Quasi-Natural Experiment
    29. The Law and Macroeconomics of Fiscal Policy

      1. Yair Listokin (Yale University), Stealth Fiscal Policy via the Income Tax Code
      2. Zachary Liscow (Yale University), How Income Taxes Should Change During Recessions
    30. New Approaches to Environmental Energy Policy

      1. David Schizer (Columbia Law School), Energy Taxes and Subsidies: Worthy Goals, Competing Priorities, and Flawed Institutional Design
      2. Clemens Fuest (Centre for European Economic Research (Z), Dominik Schober (CEER (ZEW)) and Oliver Woll (ZEW Centre for European Research), Does Market Power Allow Firms to Pass on More of the Tax Burden to Consumers? Evidence From Gasoline Tax Reforms in Austria
    31. International Taxation, Lockout, and Jurisdictional Competition

      1. Brad Lindsey (North Carolina State University) and Wendy Wilson (Texas Christian University), Foreign or Domestic Tax Havens: The Location Decision for Intangible Property by U.S. Firms
      2. Sunghoon Hong (Korea Institute of Public Finance), Unknown Beneficial Owners: Tax Treaty Shopping With Incomplete Information
  2. November 20, 2015

    1. Foreign Cash and Earnings

      1. James Chyz (University of Tennessee), LeAnn Luna (University of Tennessee) and Hannah Smith (The University of Tennessee), Implicit Taxes of U.S. Domestic and Multinational Firms Over the Past Quarter-Century
      2. Dan Dhaliwal (The University of Arizona), Matthew Erickson (University of Arizona), Nathan Goldman (The University of Arizona) and Linda Krull (University of Oregon), Do Foreign Cash Holdings Influence the Cost of Debt?
    2. International Corporate Tax Policy

      1. Jennifer Gravelle (Government Accountability Office), Corporate Tax Incidence with Excess Profits
      2. Harry Grubert (U.S. Treasury Department) and Rosanne Altshuler (Rutgers University), Shifting the Burden of Taxation From the Corporate to the Personal Level and Getting the Corporate Tax Rate Down to 15 Percent
    3. U.S. Wealth Inequality Measurement

      1. Jesse Bricker (Federal Reserve Board), Alice Henriques (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), Jacob Krimmel (Federal Reserve Board) and John Sabelhaus (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), Measuring Income and Wealth at the Top Using Administrative and Survey Data
    4. State Business Taxation

      1. Alexander Ljungqvist (New York University) and Michael Smolyansky (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), To Cut or Not to Cut? On the Impact of Corporate Taxes on Employment and Income
      2. Pablo Fajgelbaum (UCLA), Eduardo Morales (Princeton University), Juan Carlos Suarez Serrato (Duke University) and Owen Zidar (University of Chicago), State Taxes and Spatial Misallocation
      3. Eric Ohrn (Grinnell College), Do State Policies Undermine Federal Investment Incentives? Evidence From Bonus Depreciation
    5. New Perspectives on Optimal Tax Policy #3

      1. Johannes Hermle (University of Bonn) and Andreas Peichl (University of Mannheim), Jointly Optimal Income Taxes for Different Types of Income
      2. Lizi Chen (MIT) and Casey Rothschild (Wellesley College), Screening With Endogenous Preferences
    6. Design of the EITC

      1. Jacob Bastian (University of Michigan), Are in-Work Tax Credits Effective in the Presence of Generous Public Assistance? Evidence From the 1975 Earned Income Tax Credit
    7. Social Insurance

      1. Laura Kawano (U.S. Department of the Treasury) and Ryan Nunn (U.S. Department of the Treasury), Unemployment Insurance and Worker Mobility
    8. Local Public Finance

      1. Sachiko Kazekami (Chukyo University), Incidence, Optimal Use and Rationale of Place-Based Job Creation Programs
      2. Francois Vaillancourt (Universite de Montreal), Incidence of Taxes and Governemnt Expenditures at the Subnational Level; Evidence for Quebec in 2007
    9. Fiscal Rules, Transparency, and Accountability

      1. Nancy Hudspeth (California State University Stanislaus), David Merriman (University of Illinois), Richard Dye (Universty of Illinois at Chicago) and Andrew Crosby (University of Illinois at Chicago), Do Troubled Times Invite Cloudy Budget Reporting? The Determinants of General Fund Expenditure Share in U.S. States
      2. Anna Costello (MIT), Reining Petacchi (MIT) and Joseph Weber (MIT), Consequences of State Balanced Budget Restrictions: Fiscal Constraints or Accounting Manipulations?
      3. Rachel F. Wang (International Monetary Fund), Timothy C. Irwin (International Monetary Fund) and Lewis K. Murara (International Monetary Fund), Trends in Fiscal Transparency: Evidence from a New Database of the Coverage of Fiscal Reporting
    10. Policymaking in the Face of Uncertainty

      1. David Kamin (New York University), In Good Times and Bad: Designing Legislation That Responds to Fiscal Uncertainty
      2. Alan Auerbach (University of California, Berkeley), Fiscal Uncertainty and How to Deal With It
      3. Jason Oh (UCLA School of Law), Political Uncertainty in the Law
      4. Benjamin Page (CBO), The Uncertainty of Long-Term Budget Projections
    11. Measuring Inequality

      1. Kevin Moore (Federal Reserve Board) and Adam Looney (Brookings Institution), Changes in the Distribution of After-Tax Wealth: Has Income Tax Policy Increased Wealth Inequality?
    12. Problems With Pools: Cross-Subsidies, Universal Service, and Political Economy

      1. Trevor Gallen (University of Chicago), Using Participant Behavior to Measure the Value of Social Programs: The Case of Medicaid
    13. Tax Compliance

      1. Youssef Benzarti (University of California, Berkeley), How Taxing Is Tax Filing? Leaving Money on the Table Because of Compliance Costs.
      2. Yulia Paramonova (National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg), Collateral Tax Sanctions: A Way to Correlate Punishment With Ability
      3. Michael Hallsworth (Imperial College London), The Use of Field Experiments to Increase Tax Compliance
  3. November 21, 2015

    1. Volatility

      1. Howard Chernick (Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City Univ of NY), Income Taxes, Consumption Taxes, and State Tax Volatility: The Case of the Great Recession
      2. Lars-Erik Borge (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Investments and Maintenance: Easy Targets When Governments Cut Budgets?
    2. Tax Policy With “Behavioral” Agents: Theory and Evidence

      1. Lauren Jones (University of Toronto) and Katherine Michelmore (University of Michigan), Timing Is Money: Does Lump-Sum Payment of Tax Credits Induce High-Cost Borrowing?
    3. Fiscal Federalism, Multilateralism, and Tax Law Design

      1. Eric Kades (William & Mary Law School), Corrective Progressivity
    4. International Tax Policy, Reform and Innovation

      1. Sebastien Bradley (Drexel University, LeBow College of Business), Estelle Dauchy (New Economic School) and Leslie Robinson (Darthmouth College), Cross-Country Evidence on the Preliminary Effects of Patent Box Regimes on Patent Activity and Ownership
      2. Sophia Chen (International Monetary Fund) and Estelle Dauchy (New Economic School), International R&D Sourcing and Knowledge Spillover: Evidence From OECD Patent Owners
    5. Tax Forms, Publications, and Compliance

      1. Leigh Osofsky (University of Miami) and Joshua Blank (NYU School of Law), Administrative Simplifications and the Tax Law
      2. Samara Gunter (Colby College), Your Biggest Refund, Guaranteed? Tax Filing Method and Reported Tax Liability
      3. Joe Bankman (Stanford Law School) and Joel Slemrod (University of Michigan), Using the ‘Smart Return’ to Reduce Tax Evasion
    6. Effects of Education Finance Policies: New Evidence From Administrative Data

      1. Caroline Hoxby (Stanford University) and George Bulman (UCSC), The Effects of the Tax Deduction for Postsecondary Tuition: Implications for Structuring Tax-Based Aid
    7. Accounting Research and Political Economy

      1. Edmund Outslay (Michigan State University), Discussant comments on: “Can Revenue Authorities Constrain Tax-Induced Income Shifting in A Politically Controlled Environment” by Kenny Lin, Yongbo Li, Lil Mills and Fang Zhang and “The Political Economy of Corporate Tax Avoidance” by Qiao Liu, Wei Luo and Pingui Rao
      2. Qiao Liu (Guanghua School of Management, Peking Un), Wei Luo (Peking University) and Pingui Rao (Jinan University), The Political Economy of Corporate Tax Avoidance
    8. Clean Energy Tax Policy

      1. Christopher Knittel (MIT), The Implications of Heterogeneity for the Regulation of Energy-Consuming Durable Goods
      2. Joseph Aldy (Harvard University), Todd Gerarden (Harvard University) and Richard Sweeney (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University), Capital Versus Output Subsidies: Implications of Alternative Incentives for Wind Investment
    9. Income Responses to Health Coverage

      1. Keith Ericson (Boston University), Medicaid or Subsidized Commercial Insurance? Evidence From Income Manipulation Around the ACA Medicaid Expansion’s Eligibility Thresholds
    10. Attitudes Toward Tax Payment and Policy

      1. Judd B. Kessler (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) and Michael I. Norton (Harvard University), Tax Aversion in Labor Supply
      2. Raymond Fisman (Columbia University), Pamela Jakiela (University of Maryland) and Shachar Kariv (University of California, Berkeley), Distributional Preferences and Political Behavior
      3. Donald B. Marron (Urban Institute), Should We Tax Internalities Like Externalities?
    11. International Tax Planning

      1. Margot Howard (University of North Carolina), Katherine Pancak (University of Connecticut) and Douglas Shackelford (University of North Carolina), Taxes, Investors, and Managers: Exploring the Taxation of Foreign Investors in U.S. REITs
      2. Eric Allen (University of Southern California) and Susan Morse (University of Texas School of Law), Tax Savings for U.S.-Centered Multinationals With Non-U.S. Incorporation Locations
    12. International Profit-Shifting and Organization Planning

      1. Morten Bennedsen (INSEAD) and Stefan Zeume (University of Michigan), Corporate Tax Havens and Shareholder Value
    13. Incidence of Firm Taxes

      1. Kyle Rozema (Cornell University), Cigarette Taxes and Producer Surplus
      2. Francois Vaillancourt (Universite de Montreal), The Incidence of Corporate Income Tax on Wages in Canada, 1997-2013
      3. Clemens Fuest (Centre for European Economic Research) and Li Liu (University of Oxford), Does Ownership Affect the Impact of Taxes on Firm Behavior? Evidence From China
      4. Jarkko Harju (VATT Institute for Economic Research), Tuomas Kosonen (VATT Institute for Economic Research) and Oskar Skans (Uppsala University), Firm Types and Heterogeneous Consumption-Tax Incidence
    14. Higher Education

      1. Marcel Gérard (Univeristé Catholique de Louvain) and Silke Uebelmesser (University of Jena), Financing Higher Education When Students and Graduates Are Internationally Mobile
    15. Tax Avoidance and Tax Risk

      1. Kirsten Cook (Texas Tech University), William Moser (Miami University) and Tom Omer (University of Nebraska – Lincoln), Tax Avoidance and Ex Ante Cost of Capital