ASA NEWS

Contact: Johanna Olexy, American Sociological Association, (202) 247-9873, [email protected]


Sociologists Available to Discuss Tax Policy

Washington, DC, September 7, 2017 — The American Sociological Association (ASA) has sociologists available to discuss tax policy and tax reform, including the Child Tax Credit, social policies, and property taxation.

Lane Kenworthy is Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego. He studies the causes and consequences of living standards, poverty, inequality, mobility, employment, economic growth, social policy, taxes, public opinion, and politics in the United States and other affluent countries. His books include How Big Should Our Government Be? (2016, with Jon Bakija, Peter Lindert, and Jeff Madrick), Social Democratic America (2014), Progress for the Poor (2011), Jobs with Equality (2008), Egalitarian Capitalism (2004), and In Search of National Economic Success (1995).

Isaac Martin, University of California-San Diego, studies the effects of tax policy on society. He is the author of Rich People's Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics (Stanford University Press, 2008), along with several other books and articles on such topics as racial inequality in property taxation; voting behavior on tax referenda; public opinion on taxation in the United States; and the causes of tax resistance in economically developed democracies.

Josh McCabe is the assistant dean of Social Sciences at Endicott College and author of The Fiscalization of Social Policy: How Taxpayers Trumped Children in the Fight Against Child Poverty (forthcoming with Oxford University Press). He is an expert on the politics of taxation, especially tax credits, exemptions, and deductions related to families and housing. He has written popular essays for National Review, National Affairs, and CommonWealth and his research has been featured in Slate and National Review.

Monica Prasad is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. Her areas of interest are comparative historical sociology, economic sociology, and political sociology. She has published books and articles on the rise of neoliberalism, the development of tax systems, the effects of carbon taxes, and the persistence of poverty in America. Her most recent book The Land of Too Much (co-winner of the ASA award for the best book in sociology) develops a demand-side theory of comparative political economy to explain the surprisingly large role of the state in the U.S., its origins in the 19th century revolution in agricultural productivity, and its consequences for undermining a European-style welfare state and leaving U.S. economic growth dependent on "mortgage Keynesianism."

 

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About the American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.