2026 NTJ Referee of the Year Award Winners

Each year, the National Tax Journal recognizes with its Referee of the Year Award two individuals who have been exceptionally helpful as referees over the course of the year. The recipients of this award provided stellar service to the NTJ, preparing reports that were particularly insightful, comprehensive, constructive, and timely. Their dedicated efforts were extremely helpful to the editors.

Join us in Congratulating the 2026 NTJ Referee of the Award Winners, Brad Hepfer and Benjamin Marx!

Bradford (Brad) Hepfer, Ph.D., CPA, is an associate professor of accounting and holds the Deborah D. Shelton Professorship in Taxation at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School. Dr. Hepfer conducts capital markets-based research at the intersection of financial accounting and taxation. More specifically, his work examines the capital market consequences of corporate financial reporting, the effects of corporate taxation, and the factors that shape corporate tax policy, with the primary goal of providing novel insights for business leaders, investors, policymakers, and regulators. Dr. Hepfer’s research has been published in top-tier academic journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Review of Accounting Studies. He serves on the editorial board of Accounting Open and previously served on that of the Journal of the American Taxation Association. An experienced educator, Dr. Hepfer has taught financial accounting and taxation at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has received recognition for teaching excellence at the university and department levels. Previously, he was an associate professor of accounting and Arthur Andersen/Norman Tucker Faculty Fellow at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. Before earning his doctorate from the University of Iowa, he was a senior tax associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in Illinois.

Benjamin M. Marx is an Associate Professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He is an applied microeconomist working in the field of public economics. His research projects examine policies and motivations for charitable giving, the growth of the nonprofit sector, and the effects of grants and student loans in higher education.

Ben has published in journals including American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Public Economics, and Experimental Economics. He also contributed a chapter to The Economics of Philanthropy. He won the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Tax Association and the Nonprofit Research Fellowship from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and he has been named a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois.

Ben’s research is informed by work experience in refugee resettlement, after-school education, and nonprofit consulting. He is an Associate Editor of the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance. He has served on program committees for the National Tax Association and the International Institute of Public Finance. He has received grants from Arnold Ventures, Lumina Foundation, Ideas42, Russell Sage Foundation, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and Science of Philanthropy Initiative.

Click here for more information about the Referee of the Year Award.

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