Professor Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors to Advance New Book Project

Ajay K. Mehrotra, the Stanford Clinton Sr. and Zylpha Kilbride Clinton Research Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Affiliated Professor of History also at Northwestern University, has been selected as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. He also received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society, which will enable him to travel to archives for research purposes. These distinguished honors will significantly support work on his current book project, currently titled “American Outlier: Economic Inequality and the U.S. Historical Resistance to National Consumption Taxes.”

The Russell Sage Foundation is dedicated to advancing social science research. Established in 1907, it focuses on improving social and living conditions through scientific inquiry. The foundation supports scholars, funds studies, and disseminates findings to inform policy and enhance understanding of social issues in the United States. Through the Russell Sage Visiting Scholars program, Mehrotra will reside along with other selected scholars at the foundation’s New York headquarters during the 2025-26 academic year. There, they will share their research and collaborate on projects. 

“I am deeply honored to receive these awards, which will enhance my research and allow me to explore the complexities of economic inequality within the historical development of American tax law and fiscal policy,” Mehrotra says. “I look forward to delving into these topics more deeply both individually through the American Philosophical Society’s travel-to-archives grant, and collectively via the Russell Sage Visiting Scholars program.”

In his book project, Mehrotra will investigate why the United States is the only advanced industrial society without a broad-based national consumption tax, such as a value-added tax (VAT), and what the absence of such a tax tells us about economic inequality in America?

“Looking through an historical lens, we can see at least three periods when the adoption of a comprehensive federal consumption tax was possible and could have evolved over time into a VAT,” he says. “The book will explore why a U.S. VAT never came to fruition and how it relates to economic inequality.”

In January 2025, Mehrotra was additionally awarded a Faculty Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. These awards highlight Mehrotra’s commitment to advancing the study of tax law and fiscal policy, further establishing him as a leading voice in legal scholarship.

About Mehrotra

Along with his academic appointments at Northwestern University, Mehrotra is also a Research Professor and Former Executive Director of the American Bar Foundation (ABF), an independent, non-profit research institute that focuses on the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law.

Mehrotra’s academic work primarily concentrates on legal history, tax law, and promoting diversity within legal education and the profession. His research delves into the intersections of law and political economy from both historical and comparative viewpoints, particularly emphasizing tax law and fiscal policy. He is the author of “Making the Modern American Fiscal State: Law, Politics, and the Rise of Progressive Taxation, 1877-1929” (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and co-editor of several notable works, including “A Half-Century with the Internal Revenue Code: The Memoirs of Stanley S. Surrey” (Carolina Academic Press, 2022) and “The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective” (Cambridge University Press, 2009). His scholarly articles have been featured in prominent interdisciplinary and historical journals, as well as various law reviews. In addition, his insights have appeared in major media outlets such as Bloomberg.com, Law360.com, Time, Washington Monthly, and The Washington Post. Mehrotra has been awarded grants and fellowships from prestigious organizations, including the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.