Conor Clarke
Associate Professor of Law
Professor Conor Clarke’s research and teaching lie at the intersection of public law and public finance. His research interests include the history of American taxing and spending, the psychology of public finance, income inequality, and the history of the administrative state. His work draws on both law and economics and empirical methods, and his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the University of Chicago Law Review, Texas Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Tax Notes, Tax Policy and the Economy, and the European Journal of Law and Economics, among others. In addition, his writings for a popular audience have appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate.
His research and teaching are also informed by his government service. Between 2017 and 2023, he was an attorney at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, which serves as a legal adviser to the President and the Executive Branch. Across two administrations, he advised numerous federal agencies on some of the federal government’s most important and sensitive legal issues, with a general emphasis on administrative law and the constitutional separation of powers, as well as appropriations law, the federal budget, and the national debt. For his advice-giving work, he received the Department’s 2023 John Marshall Award.
Professor Clarke earned his B.A. in social and political theory summa cum laude from Amherst College. After graduation, he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study in the United Kingdom, where he earned a master’s degree in economics from the University of Birmingham and a master’s degree in quantitative methods in political science from the London School of Economics. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he won the Ralph K. Winter Prize in law and economics. He clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Magistrate Judge Jeremy Peterson of the Eastern District of California in Yosemite National Park.
- Education
- JD, Yale Law School, 2015
- M.Res, The London School of Economics, 2011
- M.Sc, Economics, The University of Birmingham {UK), 2010
- B.A., Amherst College, 2008
- Courses
- Federal Income Taxation
- Tax Policy
- Publications
I. In Progress
- The Practice of Article II Constitutionalism (with Dan Epps)
- Income Inequality and the Corporate Sector (with Wojciech Kopczuk)
- Special-Purpose Governments (with Henry Hansmann)
II. Published and Forthcoming
- Special-Purpose Governments, 92 U. CHI. L. REV._ (forthcoming 2024) (with Henry Hansmann
- The Debt Limit, 101 WASH. U. L. REV._ (forthcoming 2024)
- Moore: The Overlooked Excise Power, 181 TAX NOTES 1759 (2023); 112 TAX NOTES lNT’L 1345 (2023)
- No New Tax Cuts? Examining the Rescue Plan’s New State Tax Limits, 103 TAX NOTES STATE 1361 (2022) (with Edward Fox), Mich. Law & Econ Research Paper No. 22-017
- Does Law and Economics Help Decide Cases?, 48 EUR. J. L. & ECON. 89 (2019) (with Alex Kozinski)
- Business Income and Business Taxation in the United States Since the 1950s, 31 TAXPOL’Y & ECONOMY 121 (2017) (with Wojciech Kopczuk) NBER Working Paper No. 22778
- What are Tax Havens and Why are They Bad?, 95 TEX. L. REV. 59 (2016) (review essay)
- New Research on the Stubborn Persistence of Tax Expenditures, 150 TAX NOTES 1462 (2016)
- Perceptions of Tax Expenditures and Direct Outlays: A Survey Experiment, 124 YALE L.J. 1252 (2015) (with Edward Fox) (note)
- The Uneasy Case Against Auer and Seminole Rock, 33 YALE L. & PoL’Y REV. 175 (2015) (essay)
- Is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Really a Rubber Stamp?, 66 STAN. L. REV. ONLINE 125 (2014)
- Merging and Dissolving Special Districts, 31 YALEJ. ON REG. 493 (2014) (comment)
- Beyond Discretion: Prosecution, the Logic of Sovereignty. and the Limits of Law, 33 LAW & Soc. INQUIRY 387 (2008) (with Austin Sarat)
III. Editing and Works in Collection
- We Are All Tax Historians Now, in “The Biggest Implications of Moore,” 181 TAX NOTES 2147 (2023)
- Why the Supreme Court Might Not Overrule Seminole Rock, in REFLECTIONS ON SEMINOLE ROCK: THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF DEFERENCE TO AGENCY REGULATORY INTERPRETATIONS (2016 Symposium)
- CREATIVE CAPITALISM: A CONVERSATION WITH BILL GATES, WARREN BUFFETT, AND OTHER ECONOMIC LEADERS (Simon & Schuster 2009) (edited with Michael Kinsley)
- Complexity, Contingency, and Change in Law’s Knowledge Practices, in How LAW KNOWS (Stanford 2006) (with Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas & Martha Umphrey)
IV. Popular and Short Writing {selected since 2023)
- What Issues are Fair Game in Moore v. United States? YALEJ. REG. ONLINE (Dec. 16, 2023)
- The Supreme Court Takes On Yet Another Made-Up Controversy, THE ATLANTIC (Dec. 4, 2023)
- Why the Debt Limit Is (Still, Really) Constitutional, THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (May 30, 2023)
- Why The Statutory Debt-Limit Gimmicks Don’t Work, THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (May 26, 2023)
- What Exactly Is a “Default”?, THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (May 25, 2023)
- There Is No Constitutional End Run Around the Debt Ceiling, THE ATLANTIC (May 24, 2023)
- Why Do We Have a Debt Limit?, THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (May 24, 2023)
- The Phony Debt-Ceiling ‘Calamity’, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (May 22, 2023) (with Kristin Shapiro)
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