12 May 2016. Under the heading of "Tax Reform in an Era of Budget Stress, Inequality and International Mobility", Alan Auerbach's Walter Adolf Jöhr lecture will analyse the current challenges and the role of fiscal policy at a time of budget bottlenecks, increasing inequality and international mobility.

Abstract of Alan Auerbach’s lecture
"When governments have to deal with economic and social problems such as fiscal sustainability and inequality, their scope of action is limited by increasing globalisation and international mobility. This lecture will analyse the underlying challenges and home in on the role of fiscal policy."

Professor at the University of California, Berkeley

Professor Alan Auerbach was born in 1951 and read Economics at the Universities of Harvard and Yale. Alan Auerbach is Robert D. Burch Professor of Economics and Law and Director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also Dean of the Economics Department of that university. Alan Auerbach is Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and previously taught both at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1992, Professor Auerbach was Deputy Chief of Staff of the US Joint Committee on Taxation, and he was an adviser for numerous other government offices in the United States and abroad. He was Vice-President of the American Economic Association and editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. At present, he is the editor of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Alan Auerbach is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society. He has published 16 books and more than 180 articles in all the renowned academic journals.

His work includes a great number of trail-blazing contributions to issues of taxation, distribution effects, the sustainability of financial policy and many other topics. He has put his stamp on the debate about corporate taxation and was also authoritatively involved worldwide in fundamental concepts of fiscal reform.

Public lecture
The lecture will take place on Friday, 20 May 2016, from 11.15 a.m. in Room 09-011 in the Library Building of the University of St.Gallen. It is open to the public and will be given in English. Admission will be free.