Seto on The Top 10 Tax Faculties By Metropolitan Region

As regular readers of this blog know, I prepare a weekly ranking of the Top 5 New Tax Papers, as well as a monthly ranking of the Top 25 Tax Professors, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads.  Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has gone a step further and prepared a study for publication here, SSRN Tax Faculty Downloads by Law School and City.  I am sharing the results of Ted's study this week on TaxProf Blog.

In today's final installment, Ted ranks the Top 10 Tax Faculties by Metropolitan Region, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 7/1/06):

Here is Ted's conclusion:

SSRN downloads are, of course, only one measure of scholarly productivity and impact, and scholarship is certainly not the only relevant measure of the quality of a law faculty. With these qualifications, however, it’s pretty clear who comes out on top: Los Angeles can fairly claim to be one of the most productive centers of tax scholarship in the U.S.

Ted Seto's 3-Part Study of Tax Faculties:

• Wednesday:  The Top 25 Tax Faculties
• Thursday:  The Top Graduate Tax Faculties
• Today:  The Top 10 Tax Faculties By Metropolitan Region

Ted has graciously agreed to update the Top 25 Tax Faculties and Top Graduate Tax Faculties rankings each month, so watch for these updated rankings each month, along with our monthly update of the Top 25 Tax Faculty rankings.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006). For more details about Ted's study, see below the fold:

For purpose of this analysis, a tax professor is defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.