Dr. Tosun is the Barbara Smith Campbell Distinguished Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He is also a Professor of Economics and the Director of International Programs in the College of Business. He is a research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), an affiliate research fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a research fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF) for Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey, and a fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO). He is an Associate Editor of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. He is on the journal editorial board of Migration Letters and the journal program committee of Przeglad Organizacji (Organization Review) in Poland. He also serves on the board of the Reno Philharmonic Association and the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies at UNR. Dr. Tosun received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His research interests and expertise include public finance (particularly tax policy), regional economics, and economics of population and demography. He has published in such journals as the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Oxford Economics Papers, National Tax Journal, Economics Letters, International Tax and Public Finance, Journal of Regional Science, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. He has done consulting for a number of national and international agencies, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Dr. Tosun received a number of awards including the Graduate Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Business in 2019, the Global Engagement Award from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2018, the Dean’s Research Professorship Award in 2013, the Best Researcher of the Year Award from Beta Gamma Sigma (an international business honor society) in 2009, and the Middle East Economic Association’s Ibn Khaldun Prize in 2005. He was also the local organizer of the 72nd Annual Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) which was held in Lake Tahoe in 2016, and the Anniversary Chair of the National Tax Association's 100th Anniversary Conference in 2007.
Governments in the Middle East and North Africa face great uncertainty in estimating the ramifications of the pandemic for their tax revenues in the coming years. Using both the most recent available data and historic data from the 2008 global recession, this column analyses the impact that Covid-19 may have on taxation in the region and outlines options for tax policy reform.