Areas of Expertise
Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, Subnational Taxation
Courses
Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, Tax Policy, Tax Law Colloquium, Subfederal Taxation
Biography
Alex Zhang is a scholar of federal income, corporate, and subnational taxation. His research focuses on taxation and democracy, and he has pursued this general theme along doctrinal, historical, comparative, and behavioral lines. It asks the key question: How should the state design constitutional, discursive, and governance infrastructure that will foster tax-policy outcomes which better cohere with democracy and egalitarianism? Recent scholarship examines: (1) the constitutional-fiscal capacity of the democratic state, shaped by a rich history of tax doctrine and lawmaking, (2) the powers and limits on revenue generation by subfederal sovereigns, especially those overlooked in traditional discourse (e.g., Native tribes), and (3) the democracy- and equality-forcing roles played by procedure, speech, government disclosure, and exempt status in taxation. His scholarship has been published by leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Stanford Law Review, NYU Law Review, American Journal of Comparative Law, and American Journal of Law and Equality. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
At Emory, Zhang teaches Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, Subfederal Taxation, and seminars that take historical, comparative, and philosophical approaches to tax policy. His teaching has won the Provost’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Education.
He has an additional interest in using classical (i.e., ancient Greek and Roman) political theory and practices to illuminate today’s debate. Recent articles examine separation of powers, ostracism as an electoral mechanism, scrutiny of public art and monuments, and Classical Athenian tax procedure. His Ph.D. work focused on the rise of natural-law theories and normative concepts of law in Athenian democracy.
Before coming to Emory, Zhang clerked for the Hon. William A. Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and for the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Clifford L. Porter Prize in Taxation. He earned a Ph.D. from the combined program in Classics and Philosophy at Yale University, and read Classics, Philosophy, and History at the University of Pennsylvania.
Education: JD, Yale Law School; MA, MPhil, PhD, Yale University; BA, University of Pennsylvania