Future Research Directions in Taxation.

This paper is the text of Professor G. Peter Wilson's comments to the 1991 Big Ten Doctoral Programs Consortium. Wilson's primary objective is to discuss about several issues that are central to the microeconomic theory of tax policy. His another objective is to occasionally wax philosophical and share some ideas that might help one become better academics. Traditionally, most tax research has fallen into one of two camps: tax-law research, in which the focus is largely on the details of the tax rules rather than on planning what transactions ought to occur and tax-policy research, in which the focus is typically on the macroeconomic effects of existing or proposed tax systems. In contrast, the microeconomic perspective focuses on the economic consequences of tax rules and tax rule changes on the structuring and restructuring of contractual arrangements that collectively define the economic balance sheet of the firm. Thus, the emphasis is at the firm, rather than economy, level and on the interaction between tax and non-tax factors rather than on taxes alone.