I have now (after only a few false starts and with only moderate & sporadic levels of frustrated cursing) managed to upload to the NYU website, all by my little self, pdf versions of the ppt slides for the 2 talks I gave at the National Tax Association Annual Symposium last week, each relating to a draft paper that should be in print later this year.
The link for my "Rethinking Foreign Tax Creditability" slides is here.
And that for my "Taxing Financial Institutions" slides is here.
Monday, May 17, 2010
And so it begins
Fresh strawberries have now begun showing up regularly in the NYC-area farmers' markets. A huge change for the better, but within a couple of weeks it will get monotonous, and I'll begin chafing for the start of the true summer cornucopia - of which I never tire - involving peaches, apricots, blackberries, red/black/yellow raspberries, blueberries, plums of all sorts, etc.
Another Getting It reader
This non-U.S. reader enjoyed Getting It and thought it very funny but was also disturbed by its dark side:
"There is a feeling of Enron ... [We see the characters'] lack of morality, their dishonesty (e.g., with regard to billable hours), their lack of any interest in anything but their work (e.g., they only pretend to be interested in art or the opera) and they are interested in their work not because they are really interested in what they are doing, but only because of status reasons.
"As mentioned above, behind the humor that requires of course the characters to be exaggerated I found some really interesting truths in the book. Truths that could apply to certain parts of American society. To me, this is what makes the book really good, beyond the few hours of entertainment. Everyone is very lonely. Doberman has no one [he cares about or who cares about him]. Not only because Lyla is [often] angry with him. Even if she were not, he does not really love her. And it is unclear that she loves him (I would say she does not). The other two associates have their wives but seem to have no friends. The partner and everyone else hate the weekend, even though their workdays are quite horrible too. Most of the characters do not like their parents (and usually had miserable childhoods) and hate their parents-in-law. They do not have real friends. They meet people only for networking purposes. And raising kids is thought to be a very difficult task.
"It is unclear to me what makes them happy. What are they trying to maximize. Interestingly (and accurately I think) the lawyers do not really care about the money. They care about their status (share of the profits; say at the meeting; office; power; etc.). The women want to get married but it is unclear exactly why, because it is unclear that they want kids. As I wrote before [the characters] seem to have no friends. Work takes almost all of their time (they work on weekends), and it seems all they want is to be left alone to do something that is low brow.
"It is a really good book. I will strongly recommend it to my friends."
Here I feel compelled to step in and say on my own behalf: This was not autobiography, but a kind of social criticism. If I do end up writing a legal academic novel - and I'm starting to think about it as a possible long-term project but would want to stay light-years away from anything resembling (or at risk of being taken for) roman a clef - I am going to reverse my anti-hero, making him (in this case, as a classic incompletely reliable first-person narrator) an almost photo negative of Doberman: someone who is extremely nice and blessed with a few really good relationships but rather dim and one of nature's born losers.
UPDATE: Another reader, agreeing that it's disturbing, thinks legal ethics classes might conceivably use it (!). I responded that I am willing to show up, for my usual fee (zero), at any law school (or perhaps other?) class in the NYC Metro area at which Getting It is discussed.
"There is a feeling of Enron ... [We see the characters'] lack of morality, their dishonesty (e.g., with regard to billable hours), their lack of any interest in anything but their work (e.g., they only pretend to be interested in art or the opera) and they are interested in their work not because they are really interested in what they are doing, but only because of status reasons.
"As mentioned above, behind the humor that requires of course the characters to be exaggerated I found some really interesting truths in the book. Truths that could apply to certain parts of American society. To me, this is what makes the book really good, beyond the few hours of entertainment. Everyone is very lonely. Doberman has no one [he cares about or who cares about him]. Not only because Lyla is [often] angry with him. Even if she were not, he does not really love her. And it is unclear that she loves him (I would say she does not). The other two associates have their wives but seem to have no friends. The partner and everyone else hate the weekend, even though their workdays are quite horrible too. Most of the characters do not like their parents (and usually had miserable childhoods) and hate their parents-in-law. They do not have real friends. They meet people only for networking purposes. And raising kids is thought to be a very difficult task.
"It is unclear to me what makes them happy. What are they trying to maximize. Interestingly (and accurately I think) the lawyers do not really care about the money. They care about their status (share of the profits; say at the meeting; office; power; etc.). The women want to get married but it is unclear exactly why, because it is unclear that they want kids. As I wrote before [the characters] seem to have no friends. Work takes almost all of their time (they work on weekends), and it seems all they want is to be left alone to do something that is low brow.
"It is a really good book. I will strongly recommend it to my friends."
Here I feel compelled to step in and say on my own behalf: This was not autobiography, but a kind of social criticism. If I do end up writing a legal academic novel - and I'm starting to think about it as a possible long-term project but would want to stay light-years away from anything resembling (or at risk of being taken for) roman a clef - I am going to reverse my anti-hero, making him (in this case, as a classic incompletely reliable first-person narrator) an almost photo negative of Doberman: someone who is extremely nice and blessed with a few really good relationships but rather dim and one of nature's born losers.
UPDATE: Another reader, agreeing that it's disturbing, thinks legal ethics classes might conceivably use it (!). I responded that I am willing to show up, for my usual fee (zero), at any law school (or perhaps other?) class in the NYC Metro area at which Getting It is discussed.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Ursula rises to new heights
She's owling again (as we call it) - leaping somehow to a wood beam way up high where she perches, squinting down at the world below her.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Lost opportunity
I am at the moment taking the Acela from DC back to NYC, and I just saw someone exit at Philadelphia, clutching a copy of John Grisham's The Associate. I wanted to tell him: Getting It is on a similar subject but much more fun, interesting, and memorable. In a word (or make that 2), much better. Stayed quiet, though, as I figured he'd dismiss me as a loon.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
National Tax Association Spring Symposium
I have made it, via Acela, to that supreme paradise among garden spots, the Holiday Inn Capital in southwest Washington, DC. I'll be presenting my foreign tax credit paper tomorrow (Thursday) and my coauthored financial institutions paper Friday, then scurrying back to NYC. Hurrah for Acela adding free wireless service on their trains.
UPDATE: Both talks appeared to be well-received, though in each case I was trying to cover 30 minutes worth of material in 15 minutes. (Luckily, I talk fast.) There appeared to be some buzz around my Zelig-like appearance in the Elena Kagan photo that apparently received wide distribution. That plus a $2.25 Metrocard will definitely get me a one-way ride on the NYC subway. I will try to post the slides for the two talks early next week.
Now no more trips for a full 2 weeks, at which point I will head to Belgium to defend American academe's vibrant if new-fangled "law and economics" or "new view" style of analyzing legal transitions, before a possibly skeptical audience of European tax professors who may be keener on the old time religion.
UPDATE: Both talks appeared to be well-received, though in each case I was trying to cover 30 minutes worth of material in 15 minutes. (Luckily, I talk fast.) There appeared to be some buzz around my Zelig-like appearance in the Elena Kagan photo that apparently received wide distribution. That plus a $2.25 Metrocard will definitely get me a one-way ride on the NYC subway. I will try to post the slides for the two talks early next week.
Now no more trips for a full 2 weeks, at which point I will head to Belgium to defend American academe's vibrant if new-fangled "law and economics" or "new view" style of analyzing legal transitions, before a possibly skeptical audience of European tax professors who may be keener on the old time religion.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Greenwald versus Kagan
Glen Greenwald calls it "Washington intellectual dishonesty defined" that, whereas in 1995 Elena Kagan "rightly excoriated the Supreme Court confirmation process as a 'vapid and hollow charade' because nominees refuse to answer any meaningful questions about what they think or believe," now she wants to play by the usual rules.
Personally, I am shocked, shocked by the switch.
This is no knock on Greenwald, whose voice I value in public debate - for example, concerning war crimes. By complaining about it, he's performing the role that he should, but this is how the game has always been played, and always will be.
I myself would hate to be seen (or to see myself) making that sort of all too convenient switch. But if I were playing in that league, I'd have to do it, too. This is one reason I don't want or choose to play there - I'd rather do things I enjoy and respect more. But others will play in that league, and indeed someone has to. YOU try giving honest and thoughtful answers in the environment of a Supreme Court confirmation fight, with idiots and lunatics waiting to Twitter some asinine misinterpretation. So, while in some sense I agree with Greenwald, I view this as an aesthetic preference concerning how I like to see myself, rather than as a realistic account of how we should expect people in the maelstrom to behave.
What fuels Greenwald's rage is his sense of how horrifically off-course business as usual in Washington has gotten us in recent years, with wars of choice, torture as national policy, etc. And he expects and demands more from people swimming in those poisonous seas than I do. But political convenience is a constant, not the cause of what went wrong, and I doubt that the solution (if there ever is one) will come from the sort of moral reform he evidently envisions. It will just happen historically, or else (more likely) not. Meanwhile, people will do what they must to get along. (Basic collective action problem.)
On the substantively more important issues raised by the nomination, such as Kagan's views of executive power, I am modestly hopeful, but admit I don't really know.
Personally, I am shocked, shocked by the switch.
This is no knock on Greenwald, whose voice I value in public debate - for example, concerning war crimes. By complaining about it, he's performing the role that he should, but this is how the game has always been played, and always will be.
I myself would hate to be seen (or to see myself) making that sort of all too convenient switch. But if I were playing in that league, I'd have to do it, too. This is one reason I don't want or choose to play there - I'd rather do things I enjoy and respect more. But others will play in that league, and indeed someone has to. YOU try giving honest and thoughtful answers in the environment of a Supreme Court confirmation fight, with idiots and lunatics waiting to Twitter some asinine misinterpretation. So, while in some sense I agree with Greenwald, I view this as an aesthetic preference concerning how I like to see myself, rather than as a realistic account of how we should expect people in the maelstrom to behave.
What fuels Greenwald's rage is his sense of how horrifically off-course business as usual in Washington has gotten us in recent years, with wars of choice, torture as national policy, etc. And he expects and demands more from people swimming in those poisonous seas than I do. But political convenience is a constant, not the cause of what went wrong, and I doubt that the solution (if there ever is one) will come from the sort of moral reform he evidently envisions. It will just happen historically, or else (more likely) not. Meanwhile, people will do what they must to get along. (Basic collective action problem.)
On the substantively more important issues raised by the nomination, such as Kagan's views of executive power, I am modestly hopeful, but admit I don't really know.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Update: Wa Po interview
The Washington Post interview I noted in an earlier post has now appeared. The passage where I appear goes as follows:
"Colleagues and students say she displayed intelligence and confidence in a high-wattage environment that had not always been friendly to women. 'Chicago's a small faculty. Everyone is expected to speak up and have a point of view. She was viewed as a straight-shooter who had common sense and judgment,' said Daniel Shaviro, a New York University law professor who knew Kagan at Chicago. 'She wasn't someone who just wanted to go into academics to play with ideas in a more abstruse way. She was interested in real-world institutions and issues.'"
(I characterized myself, by contrast, as someone who does like playing with ideas in a more abstruse way.)
"Colleagues and students say she displayed intelligence and confidence in a high-wattage environment that had not always been friendly to women. 'Chicago's a small faculty. Everyone is expected to speak up and have a point of view. She was viewed as a straight-shooter who had common sense and judgment,' said Daniel Shaviro, a New York University law professor who knew Kagan at Chicago. 'She wasn't someone who just wanted to go into academics to play with ideas in a more abstruse way. She was interested in real-world institutions and issues.'"
(I characterized myself, by contrast, as someone who does like playing with ideas in a more abstruse way.)
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Challenge to the efficient market hypothesis?
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Washington Post interview regarding Elena Kagan
I just spoke to a Washington Post reporter who is writing a piece on Elena Kagan that will appear if (consistently with the prevailing rumors) she is nominated. There's a decent chance that I will be quoted in the article if it appears, as in interviews like this I find myself having a fairly candid and unguarded style.
What I had to say was quite favorable to her, simply because that reflects my view. I noted that some academics (such as me) are by nature abstract, at times abstruse, art-for-art's-sake ideas-loving types, while others are advocates for their ideological viewpoints, but Kagan was in neither of these groups. Rather, she is a person of great judgment and common sense who relishes above all "thinking like a lawyer." In an academic environment, the University of Chicago Law School, where they prefer Type 1 above and tolerate Type 2, she garnered enormous personal respect even though (a) her general type is less in fashion in the contemporary legal academic world, and (b) they're a tough crowd at Chicago - by no means do they respect everyone.
I then drew an invidious comparison in terms of garnering respect at the University of Chicago Law School, admittedly based on hearsay rather than my personal knowledge, and we'll see if it appears in the article. Let's just say for present purposes that Justice Scalia was not, it is my understanding, considered anywhere close to being as intelligent, interesting, or intellectually honest as the other leading conservative intellectuals at Chicago in that era. I've always been amused by the grand airs he puts on because I know how they looked at him (across the ideological spectrum) in Chicago back in the day.
What I had to say was quite favorable to her, simply because that reflects my view. I noted that some academics (such as me) are by nature abstract, at times abstruse, art-for-art's-sake ideas-loving types, while others are advocates for their ideological viewpoints, but Kagan was in neither of these groups. Rather, she is a person of great judgment and common sense who relishes above all "thinking like a lawyer." In an academic environment, the University of Chicago Law School, where they prefer Type 1 above and tolerate Type 2, she garnered enormous personal respect even though (a) her general type is less in fashion in the contemporary legal academic world, and (b) they're a tough crowd at Chicago - by no means do they respect everyone.
I then drew an invidious comparison in terms of garnering respect at the University of Chicago Law School, admittedly based on hearsay rather than my personal knowledge, and we'll see if it appears in the article. Let's just say for present purposes that Justice Scalia was not, it is my understanding, considered anywhere close to being as intelligent, interesting, or intellectually honest as the other leading conservative intellectuals at Chicago in that era. I've always been amused by the grand airs he puts on because I know how they looked at him (across the ideological spectrum) in Chicago back in the day.
Friday, May 07, 2010
Misguided fecundity? (Metaphorically speaking)
When you agree to give a bunch of talks, it turns out (unless you're more devil-may-care about this than I am) that you actually have to prepare for them. So the PowerPoint slides have been pouring out of me over the last few days like - oh, I don't know, like kittens from a pregnant female cat (though come to think of it, her labor is a great deal shorter).
Yesterday, I did slides for a debate on transition issues in Belgium later this month. Today's efforts were for a talk regarding the co-authored financial institutions tax paper that I am presenting at the NTA in Washington next week. Next, a possible update to the slides on my foreign tax credit paper that I am also presenting at the NTA next week. (The ones I have seem to work OK, but I've made things clearer in the article, and while the slides helped with that, perhaps they can now be improved as well.)
Even once I do that (or decide to stick with what I have), the well won't be quite drained yet - at least one more to go, though it might be an expanded version of something I already have, unless I adjust to the longer time slot just by talking more slowly.
(Metaphor watch: I must mean the well where the cat is giving birth; I hope she can carry her kittens out afterward.)
All to be posted here in due course.
Yesterday, I did slides for a debate on transition issues in Belgium later this month. Today's efforts were for a talk regarding the co-authored financial institutions tax paper that I am presenting at the NTA in Washington next week. Next, a possible update to the slides on my foreign tax credit paper that I am also presenting at the NTA next week. (The ones I have seem to work OK, but I've made things clearer in the article, and while the slides helped with that, perhaps they can now be improved as well.)
Even once I do that (or decide to stick with what I have), the well won't be quite drained yet - at least one more to go, though it might be an expanded version of something I already have, unless I adjust to the longer time slot just by talking more slowly.
(Metaphor watch: I must mean the well where the cat is giving birth; I hope she can carry her kittens out afterward.)
All to be posted here in due course.
Important findings from the Wall Street Journal
According to this Wall Street Journal article:
"Male Mets fans were 43% more likely than Yankees fans to drink beer. They also drink more in general … [but] have better support systems: they rated higher for marriage (51%) and pets (47%). By contrast, the typical male Yankees fan is unmarried (59%), owns no pets (58%), and is less likely to have children in his home. 'The Yankees are more like that because they really don't care, they just care about winning,' said Michael Dawkins, a Mets fan from Brooklyn. 'They don't have time to focus on the other things in life.'"
The study also finds: "Men who follow the Mets are slightly more likely to have stopped their education during or just after high school (30% versus 25%), but there's no great income disparity." Prima facie evidence that the Mets fans - earning about the same despite lesser education, drinking more, and caring less about winning - must have, on average, higher IQs?
"Male Mets fans were 43% more likely than Yankees fans to drink beer. They also drink more in general … [but] have better support systems: they rated higher for marriage (51%) and pets (47%). By contrast, the typical male Yankees fan is unmarried (59%), owns no pets (58%), and is less likely to have children in his home. 'The Yankees are more like that because they really don't care, they just care about winning,' said Michael Dawkins, a Mets fan from Brooklyn. 'They don't have time to focus on the other things in life.'"
The study also finds: "Men who follow the Mets are slightly more likely to have stopped their education during or just after high school (30% versus 25%), but there's no great income disparity." Prima facie evidence that the Mets fans - earning about the same despite lesser education, drinking more, and caring less about winning - must have, on average, higher IQs?
Thursday, May 06, 2010
"Taxation and the Financial Sector" posted on SSRN
I have just posted on SSRN a new article draft that I co-authored with Douglas Shackelford and Joel Slemrod. It's entitled "Taxation and the Financial Sector." I will be presenting it at the National Tax Association Annual Meeting in Washington on Friday, May 14, and later this year a final version will appear in the National Tax Journal. Co-authoring, which I don't often do, was a good experience despite the incentive issues that may arise in all quarters (mine included) from such an enterprise.
Anyone who's interested can download it here.
The abstract is as follows:
In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, a variety of taxes on financial institutions have been proposed or enacted. These taxes’ justifications range from punishing those deemed to have caused or unduly profited from the crisis, to addressing the budgetary costs of the crisis, to better aligning banks’ and bank executives’ incentives in light of the broader social costs and benefits of their actions. Although there is a long-standing literature on corrective, or Pigouvian, taxation, most of it has been applied to environmental externalities, and the externalities that arise from the actions of financial institution are structurally different. This paper reviews the justifications for special taxes on financial institutions, and addresses what kinds of taxes are most likely to achieve the various stated objectives, which often are in conflict. It then critically assesses the principal such taxes that have been proposed or enacted to date: financial transactions taxes, bonus taxes, and taxes on firms in the financial sector that apply based on size, bank liabilities, or excess profits.
Anyone who's interested can download it here.
The abstract is as follows:
In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, a variety of taxes on financial institutions have been proposed or enacted. These taxes’ justifications range from punishing those deemed to have caused or unduly profited from the crisis, to addressing the budgetary costs of the crisis, to better aligning banks’ and bank executives’ incentives in light of the broader social costs and benefits of their actions. Although there is a long-standing literature on corrective, or Pigouvian, taxation, most of it has been applied to environmental externalities, and the externalities that arise from the actions of financial institution are structurally different. This paper reviews the justifications for special taxes on financial institutions, and addresses what kinds of taxes are most likely to achieve the various stated objectives, which often are in conflict. It then critically assesses the principal such taxes that have been proposed or enacted to date: financial transactions taxes, bonus taxes, and taxes on firms in the financial sector that apply based on size, bank liabilities, or excess profits.
Shortened blurb version of Nancy Matsumoto's Westview article on Getting It
"Hilarious …. tightly plotted …. One of the pleasures of Getting It is the narrator’s surgical dissection of Doberman’s motives and humorous descriptions of his inflated sense of self-worth …. brings to mind the biting satire of Evelyn Waugh, or a darker, meaner version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."
Westview interview / review for Getting It
Westview, a free monthly newspaper that is distributed in the West Village in NYC, has now posted here its interview of me, with accompanying review of Getting It.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
First fruit of the end of classes
I am close to finishing a revised version of my article "The Case Against Foreign Tax Credits," and will sub it in for the old one on SSRN when it's ready. I think I've made what I am trying to say a bit clearer this time around. In particular, at times in presenting it I would get objections that struck me as orthogonal to my actual main points, and thus as evidently requiring revision. If the customer is always right, I suppose the same holds (in a limited sense) for readers.
This is the "long" version (now close to 50 pages) that should be coming out next year in the Journal of Legal Analysis. I also have written but not posted a "short" version that I plan for the National Tax Journal (issue containing May 2010 annual conference papers). The short version is not merely more concise, or I would use it for all purposes. Rather, it omits or shortens discussion of some topics that seem more likely to interest lawyers reading the JLA than economists and policymakers reading the NTJ.
This is the "long" version (now close to 50 pages) that should be coming out next year in the Journal of Legal Analysis. I also have written but not posted a "short" version that I plan for the National Tax Journal (issue containing May 2010 annual conference papers). The short version is not merely more concise, or I would use it for all purposes. Rather, it omits or shortens discussion of some topics that seem more likely to interest lawyers reading the JLA than economists and policymakers reading the NTJ.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Taken from the photo files at the University of Chicago Law School
This photo of Elena Kagan and me was taken in 1992 at a professors vs. students trivia contest. My, but both of us looked younger then. You can certainly see which one is the prospective Supreme Court appointee - the one with the Diet Coke rather than with what rather looks like a beer.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Nostalgia for things I was too young to follow at the time
I strongly prefer the volume of Rhino's 1960s Nuggets collections that highlights L.A. ("Where The Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968") to its S.F. counterpart ("Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970"). Now if Rhino would only do a companion volume for NYC ...
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Louis Auchincloss liked Getting It
Back in 2000, when I had just finished Getting It, in a version that was not quite yet final but I believe not far off, I sent it to Louis Auchincloss. I didn't know him personally or have any connections other than our both being in the legal world, but I found his mailing address on the Internet.
A couple of weeks later I got a letter back from Auchincloss, which I treated as private during his lifetime but see no harm to excerpting now. I gather from his reply that I had pitched my cover letter in terms of feedback and advice rather than seeking a blurb, so he offered various suggestions for revision, most of which I decided not to make although I generally could see his point.
Anyway, skipping the inside baseball suggestions for what he thought I might consider changing, it went like this:
"Dear Mr. Shaviro,
"I don't usually read what you call 'unsolicited manuscripts,' but yours came at a very good time, and I read it right away. I think your idea of a cad-hero in the rat race for partnership in a firm of cut-throats was a good one, and I enjoyed following the unscrupulous Doberman through all his wiles to [text containing spoilers about the ending deleted]
.... [Followed by his suggestions for what he'd do differently]
"I have enjoyed, however, your bleak picture of a scene I know too well. There are those who might think you go too far in showing Crossley as actually enjoying telling a clerk that he won't make partner, but I knew well a case on Wall Street precisely in point!
"Sincerely - Louis Auchincloss"
A couple of weeks later I got a letter back from Auchincloss, which I treated as private during his lifetime but see no harm to excerpting now. I gather from his reply that I had pitched my cover letter in terms of feedback and advice rather than seeking a blurb, so he offered various suggestions for revision, most of which I decided not to make although I generally could see his point.
Anyway, skipping the inside baseball suggestions for what he thought I might consider changing, it went like this:
"Dear Mr. Shaviro,
"I don't usually read what you call 'unsolicited manuscripts,' but yours came at a very good time, and I read it right away. I think your idea of a cad-hero in the rat race for partnership in a firm of cut-throats was a good one, and I enjoyed following the unscrupulous Doberman through all his wiles to [text containing spoilers about the ending deleted]
.... [Followed by his suggestions for what he'd do differently]
"I have enjoyed, however, your bleak picture of a scene I know too well. There are those who might think you go too far in showing Crossley as actually enjoying telling a clerk that he won't make partner, but I knew well a case on Wall Street precisely in point!
"Sincerely - Louis Auchincloss"
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