SSRN Tax Faculty Metropolitan Area Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his rankings of the Top 10 Tax Faculties by Metropolitan Region, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 8/19/09):

		All-Time Downloads		Recent Downloads
1	Los Angeles	38,967	Los Angeles	8351
2	Boston	37.906	New York	7422
3	New York	31.130	Ann Arbor/Detroit	7376
4	Ann Arbor/Detroit	27.848	Boston	6096
5	Chicago	18.014	Chicago	5512
6	Philadelphia	16.610	Champaign-Urbana	4366
7	Champaign-Urbana	15.724	Washington	4059
8	Washington	14.334	Davis, CA	3976
9	Denver	13.418	Connecticut	3109
10	Davis, CA	9474	Philadelphia	2843

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any full-time law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 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 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are made as requested. 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. Articles co-authored by members of a single faculty are counted only once towards that faculty’s tally.

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).

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:

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