Hey that’s about the cost of the SSI Restoration Act, which would cut recipient poverty by 60%, eliminate marriage penalties, and modernize draconian asset limits.

As part of preparing to teach my first seminar, I've been going through literature on business entities whose governance logics are structurally different than Fortune 500-style Berle & Means corporations (funds, consumer co-ops, etc.), and then I found this: repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol116/i...

There's one non-public-utility market in America where it is routine for legislators, including in deep-red states, to endorse price controls, and no one has a problem with it! www.wsj.com/finance/regu...

Meanwhile, affordable housing costs per unit in Boston are creeping toward the million-dollar mark...

Under the new FAFSA form, when applying for financial aid you only have to report a 529 account *for that student*, meaning that if you have n children, you only have to report 1/n of your total 529 assets. Pure arbitrage through faulty reporting rules. thecollegefinanciallady.com/2026/01/13/t...

I love reading securities litigation expert reports because sometimes they're 800 pages long with 650 pages being appendices of asset return time series and earnings call transcripts, and sometimes they're just someone writing a 10 pager and then attaching their CV

I'm proud to announce that I have defended my finance dissertation and that this summer I will become an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Texas at Austin! Most of all, I would like to thank Roberta Romano, whose JD-PhD program in finance changed my career.

Disgraced former Apollo CEO Leon Black reportedly consulted with Jeffrey Epstein on use of GRATs to dodge estate & gift tax. I searched the Epstein files and found a doc that appears to show that in 2015, Black held over 70% of his family office (value in the billions) in GRATs.

BREAKING: The Tribune confirmed on Instagram that the man shot has died, according to two sources with knowledge of the incident. ICE attempted to order local police from the scene, but Chief Brian O'Hara refused, sources also told the Tribune. O'Hara instructed his officers to preserve the scene.

Recommended, especially for the insightful point about private equity as a solution to "partner runs."

A couple years ago, for my professional responsibility class I wrote up a paper on what happened to the lawyers at Dewey & LeBoeuf and the implications for partnership governance in the legal industry. It'll be formally published in the UC Law Business Journal! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Liked this paper, "Judge Ideology and Corporate Tax Planning," a lot. When the federal Circuit Court of a firm's headquarters becomes more liberal, firms reduce the aggressiveness of their tax planning (proxied by effective tax rate and certain higher-risk maneuvers). papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

I learned a lot from this paper, Valuing Litigation Assets by Robert Weber. Burford Capital, the largest publicly traded litigation finance company, was reporting the fair value of their litigation claims on their quarterly reports using expected value methods that didn't use time value of money!

The American Economic Association's Committee on the Job Market surveyed Economics Departments in the U.S. regarding their plans to hire assistant professors this cycle (2025-26). 29.7% said that their department was under a hiring freeze. 1/3 #EconSky #EconJobMarket

You think this is a niche story, but turns out something like 1/3 of the wealth of the top .1% richest Americans -- prob more than $5 trillion -- is in trusts that will never pay a penny of inheritance tax. Let's fix that, eh? Source: SSRN eLibrary share.google/AC0TBnGCCASz...

The Second Circuit has ruled for the Commissioner in this case, on the grounds that Pascucci does not have a sufficient "property interest" in the fund in which the life insurance policy made an investment. Life insurance doctrine holds. www.taxnotes.com/research/fed...

Wrote a new paper on the econometrics of financial event studies, would value feedback! It's very new. With my amazing grad student Tianshu Lyu www.tianshulyu.com, who is on the market. You should hire him! paulgp.com/papers/finan...

Before Switzerland’s largest life insurance company agreed to pay the U.S. government more than $77 million for facilitating tax evasion, it arranged private placement life insurance policies for Russian oligarchs, leaked documents from @icij.org show. Read more: https://taxnotes.co/3XdFjUq

I'm quoted in the latest @laurenloricchio.bsky.social + @chandrawallace.bsky.social @taxnotes.com investigation of the "offshore" life insurance industry, which found a Russian oligarch with a $430 million policy. Article here: www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-to...

Expert Asymmetry reviewed in JOTWELL!

Excited to announce this paper has been accepted at the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies! Thank you to BC Law, where I happened to be presenting it today. We have a couple more presentations between now and the due date to continue refining, and an updated version is up on SSRN.

If you're at BC Law, I will be presenting Expert Asymmetry: Evidence from Securities Litigation in the Regulation and Markets Workshop today! www.linkedin.com/posts/boston...

NEW: Adam Callister and @agranato42.bsky.social (@yalesom.bsky.social), and Belisa Pang (@umichlaw.bsky.social) argue that differing incentives faced by plaintiffs and defendants in “battles of the experts” litigation leads to structurally higher spending by defendants on expert witnesses.

Update to this paper with a variety of additional robustness analysis just pushed to SSRN! I'll be presenting it at the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies and Boston College Law School Regulation & Markets Workshop this fall.

I am on the legal academic job market! My job talk paper is on how courts in tax, corporate, and bankruptcy law spheres value business interests systematically differently, such that the same asset is "worth" different amounts of money depending on the substantive underlying law.

Thanks @andrewkjennings.com @busscholarship.bsky.social for having us on to talk about expert witnesses!

One of best public universities on one of the five most beautiful campuses in the country. Decimated.

In 2021, I wrote about a result that occurs when the sum of the marginal federal & state income and capital gains tax rates exceeds 100%: it becomes outright more profitable for top-rate taxpayers to donate low-basis assets than sell them. medium.com/@agranato/wh...

NEW PAPER: Expert Asymmetry. When there is a "battle of the experts," civil procedure rules mean that defendants spend more on expert witnesses. In a decade of handcollected securities litigation data, Ds spend 37% more on economist experts (avg $1,150/hour). Draft: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

California's Senator Alex Padilla is dragged out of a Kristi Noem press conference by security, then forced on the ground and cuffed. Stills from video:

Securities class actions are an effective place to study civil procedure because they are tracked, fairly standardized, and nearly always filed in federal courts so their Dockets are available on Bloomberg. scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcont...

.⁦‪⁦‪@LAPDHQ‬⁩ officer just raised and aimed directly at a protester.

now this is a fun one academic.oup.com/jla/article/...

An ETF company, Alpha Architects, is about to launch a product specifically designed so that high-net-worth investors with relatively concentrated portfolios and high unrealized gains can conduct a tax-free 351 transfer into a fully diversified ETF. funds.alphaarchitect.com/wp-content/u...

Breaking News: A judge blocked a Trump administration move to bar Harvard University from admitting international students, hours after the school filed suit.

The peer review process at one of the most prestigious journals in economics did not catch that an entire submission seems to have been a fabrication. thebsdetector.substack.com/p/ai-materia...

Our NEA grant was canceled. Here’s a letter from our development director about what’s happening.

Thanks to ICI Research Seminar for having me to talk about life insurance taxation. More to come!

What’s inconvenient? Flying in and out of an airport half a state away when there’s an airport with a similar route in your very city. What’s the right thing to do? Refuse to support an airport that volunteers for lawless ICE deportation flights. Proud to boycott Avelo. www.wfsb.com/2025/04/17/p...

NEW: The Trump administration swiftly cancelled dozens of international student visas Friday at Stanford and University of California campuses, including UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. One UC San Diego student was taken into custody at the border for deportation: www.latimes.com/california/s...

BREAKING: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed SB1, overhauling the higher education system — banning DEI, limiting how "controversial topics" can be taught, & ending tenure. It will go into effect in 90 days. @news5cleveland.bsky.social @ohiocapitaljournal.com www.news5cleveland.com/news/politic...

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

The Department of Justice has cited my life insurance tax article with Ari Glogower in the appeal of this case in the Second Circuit. The case flips the usual sides on which party, the IRS or the taxpayer, wants to say who violated the investor control doctrine. www.bloomberglaw.com/product/blaw...

every day is so shameful

Happy Awad v. AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. day to all who celebrate