Joel Slemrod is a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, where he also serves as Director of the Office of Tax Policy Research, an interdisciplinary research center housed at the Business School. In 1983-84 he was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and in 1984-85 he was the senior economist for tax policy at the President's Council of Economic Advisers. He’s been at Michigan since 1987.

Professor Slemrod has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and several foreign governments, as well as to Marriott International and Merck & Co., Inc. He has been a member of the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers, and has testified before the Congress on domestic and international taxation issues. From 1992 to 1998 Professor Slemrod was editor of the National Tax Journal, and from 2006 to 2010 was co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics. In 2005-6, he was president of the National Tax Association, and from 2015 to 2018 president of the Interenational Institute of Public Finance. He is co-author with Jon Bakija of Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen’s Guide to the Debate over Taxes, whose fifth edition was published in 2017, and with Len Burman of Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know, whose second edition was published in 2020. His latest book is Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisom through the Ages, co-authored with Michael Keen, which will appear in 2021. In 2012 he received from the National Tax Association its most prestigious award, the Daniel M. Holland Medal for distinguished lifetime contributions to the study and practice of public finance.

I am the Paul Volcker Professor of Behavioral Economics and a professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute/Tax Policy Center (TPC), and a research associate at the Center for Policy Research. My research focuses on federal tax and budget policy. In 2002, I co-founded the TPC, which I directed until 2017. I served several stints in government, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at the US Treasury and Senior Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. I was president of the National Tax Association (NTA) from 2010-2011, and 2016 recipient of the NTA’s Davie-Davis Award for Public Service. I am a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. I have a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

I am the coauthor with Joel Slemrod of Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd edittion (Oxford, 2020), author of The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed (Brookings, 1999), and co-editor of Using Tax Breaks to Reform Health Insurance (Brookings, 2008) and Taxing Capital Income (Urban Institute, 2007).

My commentaries have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, Houston Chronicle, Newsday, Christian Science Monitor, Syracuse Post-Standard, CNNMoney, and the public radio programs Marketplace and Morning Edition. I have been interviewed on various national and regional news programs, including: CBS Sunday Morning, The NewsHour (PBS), Washington Journal (C-Span), Lou Dobbs Moneyline (CNN), Nightly Business Report (PBS), Capital Report (CNBC), Your World with Neil Cavuto (Fox), BBC World, all the network news programs as well as Bloomberg TV, CNNfn, CNN, CNBC, and Fox cable news programs. I have appeared as a radio guest on: Fresh Air (PBS), Kojo Nnamdi Show (WAMU), Diane Rehm Show (WAMU), Iowa Talks (WSUI), Midmorning (MPR), On Point (PBS), Conversations with Joy Cardin (WI public radio), and I've been interviewed on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, Capitol Press Room, and numerous regional stations.

I have four adult kids, three adorable granddaughters, and am married to my college sweetheart, Missie Burman. I'm an avid bicyclist. I cycled across the United States in 2005 with my son, Paul, to raise money for Partners In Health, an incredible NGO that provides first-world health care to some of the poorest people in the world. (We raised $108,000.) I sing baritone in two choruses, the Syracuse Oratorio Society and Polyhymnia, and I love to cook.