THE REAL WORLD

Over the past half century, the academic analysis of taxation has become more technical, increasingly involving sophisticated mathematics and statistics. For this reason, its language and reasoning have become less and less accessible to those outside academia. Academics hoping to influence the policy process have to think carefully about how to “translate” what they know into what can be convincing and useful for policy. Even those who think carefully about this translation have, I suspect, often been greeted by a dismissive reply that begins, “Yes, but in the real world …”

What is it about the real world, or about the modern analysis of taxation, that reduces the potential contribution of academics to the policy process? I can think of four problems.

1. (1) The real world is more complicated than highly stylized economic models allow.

2. (2) The models are too complicated to be of use in the real world.

3. (3) A real-world tax system needs to be administered and enforced, and some tax systems that look promising on paper fail on these practical grounds.

4. (4) The tax system is forged within a political process that constrains what can be accomplished.

The purpose of the Symposium section of the National Tax Journal, which debuted in the June 1993 issue, is to bridge the gap between academics and those who live in the trenches of the real world. For each Symposium, experts—both scholars and practitioners—were commissioned to write nontechnical papers on the leading policy issues of the day, or to reflect on what first principles should inform the policy process.