KALAMAZOO—A University of Michigan professor will address taxation and income inequality as part of the 2017-18 Werner Sichel Lecture Series at Western Michigan University.
Dr. James Hines Jr., professor of economics and law, will speak from noon to 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, in 2028 Brown Hall. His presentation, titled "Income Inequality, Progressive Taxation and Tax Expenditures," is free and open to the public. A light lunch reception will follow the lecture.
James Hines Jr.
Hines is the Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor of Economics and the L. Hart Wright Collegiate Professor of Law at U-M. He received his doctoral degree in economics from Harvard in 1986 and master's and bachelor's degrees in economics from Yale in 1980.
In addition to teaching at U-M, he also serves as research director of the business school's Office of Tax Policy Research. His research concerns various aspects of taxation. He taught at Princeton and Harvard prior to moving to Michigan in 1997 and has held visiting appointments at Columbia, the London School of Economics, the University of California-Berkeley and Harvard Law School.
Hines is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, research director of the International Tax Policy Forum, former co-editor of the American Economic Association's Journal of Economic Perspectives and was once an economist in the United States Department of Commerce. His research areas are in public finance, law and economics.
Upcoming presentations
The theme of this year's Sichel Series is "Political Economy of Inequality: U.S. and Global Dimensions." Other dates, presenters and topics in this year's series are:
- Jan. 17: Dr. Mary E. Corcoran, professor of public policy, political science and women's studies, University of Michigan, "America's Unequal Playing Field: The Gaps Between Poor and Rich Children's Resources."
- Feb. 14: Dr. David Lam, professor of economics and director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, "Why has Income Inequality Increased while Education Inequality Has Decreased in Many Developing Countries."
- March 28: Dr. Howard Stein, professor in the Department of Afro American and African Studies and the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, University of Michigan, "Institutions, Structures and Policy Paradigms in Sub-Saharan Africa: Toward Understanding Inequality."
About the series
The Sichel Series is organized by the WMU Department of Economics and named in honor of Werner Sichel, a longtime WMU economics professor and former department chair, who retired in 2004. The series is cosponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. The lectures are open to the public and formatted with the general public in mind.
This year's series is being organized by Drs. Sisay Asefa and Wei-Chiao Huang, WMU professors of economics.
For more information, contact Asefa at sisay.asefa@wmich.edu or (269) 387-5556 or Huang at wei-chiao.haung@wmich.edu or (269) 387-5528.
For more WMU news, arts and events, visit wmich.edu/news.