About

Edward Maydew is the David E. Hoffman Distinguished Professor of Accounting and the Senior Executive Director of the UNC Tax Center at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. His teaching and research interests include taxation and accounting and their roles in economic decisions. Dr. Maydew is a coauthor of 'Taxes and Business Strategy: A Planning Approach' and has served as an editor of The Accounting Review, an associate editor of the Journal of Accounting and Economics, and an editorial board member of the Journal of Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, The Accounting Review, and others. He has received awards for excellence in teaching and research, including the Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in Research and four Weatherspoon Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to his current role, he was employed by a predecessor of PwC in Chicago and was on the faculty of the University of Chicago, as well as a visiting professor at Cornell University. Dr. Maydew holds a PhD from the University of Iowa and a BBA from Iowa State University.

Research topics

• Economics
• Political Science
• Computer Security
• Public economics
• Business
• Computer Science
• Monetary economics
• Macroeconomics
• Law
• Finance
• Accounting

Selected publications

• Mandatory Information Exchange, Cross-Border Income Shifting, and the Physical Flow of Tangible Goods

  The Accounting Review · 2026-04-01

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT We examine whether mandatory tax information exchange agreements between governments have real effects on firms’ physical trade in tangible goods. We posit that some of the physical trade in tangible goods flowing through low-tax jurisdictions is intended to facilitate income shifting. As such, shocks to enforcement via mandatory information exchange agreements could cause firms to change the physical flow of goods. Using firm-level shipping container data, we find that adoption of bilateral tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) between the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions is associated with significant decreases in the volume of imports by U.S. firms from those jurisdictions. We also find reallocation effects: U.S. firms increase imports from jurisdictions in the same subregion as the treated jurisdiction, resulting in minimal overall change in total imports. To our knowledge, ours is the first study to document a connection among enforcement-related tax disclosure, income shifting, and physical trade flows. Data Availability: The data used in this study are available from the sources cited in the paper. JEL Classifications: F14; F18; F23; H25; H26.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Scope of Tax Accounting Research

  Journal of the American Taxation Association · 2025-10-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT We argue that tax researchers in accounting should expand the scope of their inquiry to include all types of taxes paid by all types of taxpayers, and that editors and reviewers should be more willing to review and consider such papers. Accountants in practice engage with a wide variety of taxes—such as payroll, sales, property, carbon, and other excise taxes—yet tax accounting scholars and journals have largely ignored these areas. We propose that broadening the scope of tax research will better align academic inquiry with real-world practice and public policy. Furthermore, we contend that accounting scholars bring valuable skills to the table for studying the effects of these taxes, given their institutional knowledge, familiarity with tax and accounting data, and experience with taxpayer behavior. By encouraging research on a broader set of taxes, accounting journals and tax accounting scholars have the potential to expand their impact and relevance. JEL Classifications: M40; H20; H25.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tax Shields Under Siege: The Effect of Limiting Interest Deductibility on Commercial Lending Negotiations 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Scope of Tax Accounting Research

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Auditing Smart Contracts 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Are Private Firms More Aggressive Tax Planners?

  The Accounting Review · 2024-01-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Drawing on confidential Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, we examine whether privately held corporations are more aggressive tax planners than their publicly held peers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find no consistent evidence that private firms are more aggressive tax planners. We then examine whether private firms’ tax planning differs from that of public firms more generally. We find that private firms engage in more conforming tax planning (planning that also reduces pretax accounting income). However, tests of nonconforming tax planning reveal that private firms generally engage in the same or less planning relative to their public peers. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the belief that private firms are generally more aggressive tax planners than are public firms, but confirm that they engage in more of some forms of general (i.e., conforming) planning. Data Availability: The IRS provided confidential tax information to Michele S. Mullaney pursuant to an Intragovernmental Personnel Act of 1970 (IPA) agreement through the Statistics of Income (SOI) Joint Statistical Research Program (JSRP). JEL Classifications: H25; H26; K34; M41.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cross-Border Income Shifting, Information Exchange, and the Physical Flow of Tangible Goods

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Tax-loss harvesting with cryptocurrencies

  Journal of Accounting and Economics · 2023-05-08 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access

  We describe the taxation landscape in the cryptocurrency markets, especially concerning U.S. taxpayers, and examine how recent increases in tax scrutiny have led to changes in crypto investors' trading behavior. We argue conceptually and then empirically document that increased tax scrutiny leads crypto investors to utilize conventional tax planning with tax-loss harvesting as an alternative to non-compliance. In particular, domestic traders increase tax-loss harvesting following the increase in tax scrutiny, and U.S. exchanges exhibit a significantly greater amount of wash trading. Additional findings suggest that broad-based and targeted changes in tax scrutiny can differentially affect crypto traders’ preference for U.S.-based exchanges. We also discuss other gray areas for tax regulation related to new crypto assets, such as Non-Fungible Tokens and Decentralized Finance protocols, that further highlight the importance of coordinating tax policy and other regulations.

  PublisherDOI

• <span>Do Superstar Firms Face Lower Tax Burdens?</span>

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Taxes and director independence: evidence from board reforms worldwide

  Review of Accounting Studies · 2022 · 51 citations

  • Accounting
  • Business
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michelle Hanlon

  196 shared

• Jacob R. Thornock

  177 shared

• Scott Dyreng

  Duke University

  20 shared

• Merle Erickson

  University of Chicago

  19 shared

• Austan Goolsbee

  University of Chicago

  18 shared

• Douglas A. Shackelford

  12 shared

• Jeffrey L. Hoopes

  10 shared

• Wayne R. Landsman

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in Research
• Four Weatherspoon Awards for Excellence in Teaching