James Alm, 2025 Holland Medal Recipient

The Daniel M. Holland Medal was created in 1993 in the memory of Daniel Holland, a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and long-time editor of the National Tax Journal. The Holland Medal, the most prestigious award given by the National Tax Association, recognizes lifetime achievement in the study of the theory and practice of public finance.

This year’s winner of the Holland Medal is James Alm. Alm is now Professor Emeritus of Economics at Tulane University, after serving as Chair of the Department of Economics. Before moving to Tulane, he was Regents Professor in the Department of Economics at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, where he worked as Chair of the Department and Dean of the School. He has also taught at Syracuse University and at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Alm’s teaching and research interests lie in the area of public economics. Over his 40 years of teaching at these institutions, Alm has been the main faculty supervisor on over 40 doctoral student dissertations and another 20 masters student theses, and he has been a member of another 70 committees. Much of his research has focused on the behavioral, distributional, and revenue effects of taxes, with a particular focus on tax compliance, the marriage penalty/bonus, and fiscal federalism. His most recent work has examined the disparate impact by race ethnicity, and gender of the U.S. income tax code. He has also worked on tax and fiscal decentralization reforms in many countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Grenada, Turkey, Egypt, Hungary, China, the Philippines, Russia, Uganda, Nigeria, India, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Nepal, Ukraine, Pakistan, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.

Alm has published over 200 papers in leading academic journals, as well as another 100 book chapters, sponsored reports, and conference proceedings, including opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tax Notes, and The Hill. He is also the author or editor of 10 books. He was the long-serving Editor of Public Finance Review. Recently, he was President of the Southern Economic Association, and he received its Distinguished Fellow Award in 2023. Alm has been especially active in the National Tax Association, including serving as its President in 2020-2021.

Alm earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Economics at Earlham College, his master’s degree in Economics at the University of Chicago, and his doctorate in Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.