Michael Knoll

Nathaniel Fensterstock Visiting Professor of Law (Fall 2009-Spring 2010)

Office: 435 West 116th Street
New York NY 10027
Tel: (215) 898-6190
Fax: (215) 573-2025
Email: mknoll@law.columbia.edu

Assistant Info

Name: Elizabeth Boylan
Phone: (212) 854-4769
Email: eboyla@law.columbia.edu


Courses/Current Research
  • Taxation
  • Corporate Finance
  • Law and Economics Seminar

Education
  • University of Chicago, J.D., cum laude, June 1984
  • Emory Law School, John M. Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics
  • University of Chicago, Ph.D., June 1983
  • University of Chicago, A.M., June 1980
  • The College of the University of Chicago, A.B., Philosophy, August 1977

Media Contact:
Public Affairs (212) 854-2650.


Detailed Biography:
Michael Knoll is the Theodore K. Warner Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Professor of Real Estate, Wharton, and Co-director, Center for Tax Law and Policy, University of Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on taxation and business to Law students, Wharton students and executives. Prior to joining the Penn faculty, Professor Knoll taught for ten years at USC Law School, was in private practice, served as a legal advisor to two vice chairmen of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and was a law clerk to Hon. Alex Kozinski, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professor Knoll writes on taxation and transactions and often on the taxation of transactions. In recent years, Professor Knoll has written on the taxation of executive compensation, new financial products, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border tax shelters. Much of Professor Knoll’s current research focuses on the impact of taxation on competitiveness. In this work, Professor Knoll seeks to understand how taxation can affect the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and workers in a wide range of industries and fields and how the tax system could be redesigned so that it could raise revenue without harming competitiveness.


Publications:
  • “The Corporate Income Tax and the Competitiveness of U.S. Industries, 63 Tax Law Review (forthcoming 2009).
  • “Taxation and the Competitiveness of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Do Taxes Encourage Sovereign Wealth Funds to Invest in the United States?” 82 Southern California Law Review 703 (2009).
  • “Samuel Zell, the Chicago Tribune and the Emergence of the S ESOP: Understanding the Tax Advantages and Disadvantages of SESOPs,” 70 Ohio State Law Journal 519 (2009).
  • “The Taxation of Private Equity Carried Interests: Estimating the Revenue Effects of Taxing Profit Interests as Ordinary Income,” 50 William & Mary Law Review 115 (2008).
  • The Ancient Roots of Modern Financial Innovation: The Early History of Regulatory Arbitrage, 87 Oregon Law Review 29 (2008).