Meet Our New/Returning Department Chair
Dr. George Zodrow, Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Chair of Economics
Research Interests: Tax Reform in the U.S. and Developing Countries,
State and Local Public Finance, and Computable General Equilibrium
Modeling of the Effects of Tax Reforms
George Zodrow holds the Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Chair of
Economics and is a Faculty Scholar at the Center for Public Finance in
the Baker Institute for Public Policy. He also holds an appointment as
an International Research Fellow at the Centre on Business Taxation at
Oxford University. He is the recipient of the 2009 Steven D. Gold Award,
presented by the National Tax Association, the National Conference of
State Legislatures, and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and
Management, to recognize significant contributions to state and local fiscal
policy and a capacity to cross the boundaries between academic research
and public policy making.
You are once again taking on the role of
Economics Department Chair, a position
you also held from 1995-2000. What
plans do you have for the department
over the next few years?
My main goal is to continue the excellent
progress we have made in the last five years
under the Rice Initiative for the Study of
Economics or RISE, a five-year program
led by former Economics Department
Chair and Social Sciences Dean Antonio
Merlo, that significantly enhanced both
teaching and research in economics at
Rice. In particular, we are hiring two new
assistant professors this year who I hope
will continue to raise the international
research profile of the Department. I also
plan to focus on continuing to improve both
our undergraduate and graduate programs,
which were restructured in 2015.
Tell me about your involvement in
tax reform projects in various world
governments. How do you bridge the
world of research and policy?
I have been involved in tax reform projects
in numerous countries, ranging, as I used to
tell my daughters, from Aruba to Zambia.
The projects are fascinating, and involve a
complex combination of explaining theories
of desirable features of tax systems as well
as how those theories have successfully
been applied in practice around the world
to government officials, always taking
into account the special characteristics
and preferences of the country involved.
And some of tax policy consulting simply
involves attempting to ensure that countries
avoid enacting bad policies, often referred
to as tax “deforms.”
As a Rice alumnus who majored in
Mechanical Engineering and Economics,
you were an undergraduate in the
department you’re now leading. What
has changed over the years? What’s
stayed the same?
As in all programs in Economics, our
majors have become more rigorous from
a mathematical standpoint – especially
our major in Mathematical Economic
Analysis, which was not part of the
curriculum when I was an undergrad – and
have a more comprehensive empirical
component. We have a larger and more
accomplished faculty, lots of new courses,
and a more vibrant graduate program.
But one of my favorite memories of my
days as a Rice undergrad was when I
was having a hard time with a concept
in intermediate microeconomics and
visited my professor, who re-explained it
to me. I still really didn’t get it, but I said
thanks and was getting up to leave when
he looked at me quizzically and more
or less said, “You’re still clueless, aren’t
you?” I unenthusiastically admitted that I
was, and he proceeded to go over it again
until I had it down pat. I believe that our
current instructors still exhibit that kind
of perceptiveness and commitment to
educating our students that makes Rice the
fabulous educational institution that it is
today and was back then.
What makes tax policy a compelling area
of research for you? What new areas of
research excite you?
I have been fascinated by tax policy since
my years as a Rice undergraduate. Modern
economics is basically the analysis of
decision making under constraints, and
taxation affects all of those decisions, for
individuals and businesses not to mention
governments, in many complex ways that
are still not fully understood but extremely
interesting to investigate. One critical
issue is the implementation of carbon taxes
as a method of addressing the problem of
climate change. In that area, John Diamond
and I are currently working on modeling
how carbon taxes can be designed to
significantly reduce carbon emissions while
minimizing deleterious effects on economic
growth and the distribution of income.
In your time at Rice, you’ve mentored
many students as research assistants.
What’s your advice to undergraduates
early in their careers at Rice who want
to prepare themselves to undertake
undergraduate research?
The best thing to do is to start early – take
all the math, statistics and economics core
courses as soon as you can so that you have
the skills to participate in a research project
fairly early in your career at Rice. But
beyond that, find a professor or two whose
research interests you, take their upper level
courses, get to know them, and then talk to
them about their research and what role you
might be able to play in it. It can be a very
rewarding experience – for both the student
and the professor. And the best research
assistant is someone like you, Biz, who has
great math skills and economic intuition
– but also can write clearly, cogently and
concisely!
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