Academic Tax Articles 1980-2000: Tax Faculty Productivity Analyses

Abstract

This study extends knowledge pertaining to accounting research productivity in taxation and provides data that may be useful for faculty career development or assessment purposes by administrators.  The authors develop an academic tax article database that contains research from 1980 through 2000 and use it to review tax faculty publication quantity and timing over a 20-year career window for both those at doctoral and non-doctoral granting institutions.  Results indicate that publication rates tend to spike within the first five years in academia for faculty at both doctoral and non-doctoral institutions and trail off from that point to year +20.  Further, faculty at doctoral schools published almost twice as many academic tax articles as faculty at non-doctoral institutions.  Relative publication differences between faculty at the two school types remain constant over time.  Additional insights include that non-tax accounting faculty contributed to almost half of all academic tax articles in the study, most faculty retain the tax designation during the first 20 years of their career, movement to doctoral schools by tax faculty happens early in a career, and in contrast, movement from doctoral schools happens later in academia.