Joel Slemrod

Joel Slemrod

(734) 936-3914
William Davidson Professor of Business Administration
Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy
Professor of Economics, LSA (courtesy)
Professor of Law (courtesy)
Education
PhD Harvard University 1980
AB Princeton University 1973
Academic Areas
Business Economics and Public Policy
Research
Biography

Joel Slemrod studies and writes about tax policy. In 1984-5 he was senior staff economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Canadian Department of Finance, the New Zealand Department of Treasury, the South African Ministry of Finance, the World Bank, the OECD, and several corporations. From 1992 to 1998, he was editor of the National Tax Journal. He is co-author with Leonard E. Burman of Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-author with Christian Gillitzer of Tax Systems, published in 2014, and co-author with Jon Bakija of Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes, whose 5th edition was published in 2017.  His latest book is Rebellion, Rascals and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages, co-authored with Michael Keen and published by Princeton University Press in 2021.

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Featured Books
Tax Systems
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Tax Systems
Slemrod, J. and Gillitzer, C.
Despite its theoretical elegance, the standard optimal tax model has significant limitations. In this book, Joel Slemrod and Christian Gillitzer argue that tax analysis must move beyond the emphasis on optimal tax rates and bases to consider such aspects of taxation as administration, compliance, and remittance. Slemrod and Gillitzer explore what they term a tax-systems approach, which takes tax...
Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know
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Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know
Joel Slemrod, Leonard E. Burman
Despite their passion and fury, contemporary Americans are remarkably clueless about how their tax system works. But with heated debates over taxation now roiling Congress and the nation, an understanding of our tax system is of vital importance. Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know®, by preeminent tax scholars Leonard E. Burman and Joel Slemrod, offers a clear, concise explanation of how...