James Poterba Awarded Daniel Holland Medal

MIT Press Release, MIT Economist James Poterba Awarded the Holland Medal:

MIT Economics Professor James M. Poterba has been chosen to receive the Daniel M. Holland Medal from the National Tax Association in honor of his outstanding contributions to the study and practice of public finance. ...

The Mitsui Professor of Economics, Poterba is the first MIT faculty member to receive the Holland Medal, which was established in 1993 to honor Holland, a nearly 30-year MIT Sloan faculty member who was an expert on taxation and public finance. Holland served as president of National Tax Association in 1989 and edited the National Tax Journal from 1996 until his death in 1991....

Poterba, who joined the MIT faculty in 1983, teaches a graduate course on the economics of taxation. His recent work has emphasized the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. He has been especially interested in analysing the impact of 401(k) plans and IRAs on the level and adequacy of retirement saving.

From 2006-2008, Poterba served as head of the MIT Department of Economics, and in 2009 was president of the National Tax Association, a nonpartisan, nonpolitical educational organization dedicated to fostering the study and discussion of complex and controversial issues in tax theory, practice, and policy, as well as other aspects of public finance. Nine of Poterba's PhD students have won the National Tax Association's award for the outstanding doctoral dissertation in government finance and taxation.

Since 2008, Poterba has also served as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-profit research organization with more than 1,300 affiliated economists.

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