Faculty
Michelle Hanlon is the Howard W. Johnson Professor and a Professor of Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management
Hanlon teaches a course on taxes and business strategy and she also often teaches an introductory financial accounting course. Her research focuses primarily on the intersection of taxation and financial accounting. Hanlon’s recent work examines the capital market and reputational effects of corporate tax avoidance, the economic consequences of U.S. international tax policies for multinational corporations, the effect of individual level taxes on corporate payout policy, and the extent of individual-level offshore tax evasion. She is an editor at one of the leading accounting research journals. She has won several awards for her research and is the winner of the 2013 Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Sloan.
She has co-authored two textbooks: Financial Accounting (Cambridge Business Publishers) and Taxes and Business Strategy (Pearson Education, Inc.).
Hanlon has testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means regarding U.S. tax policy. She recently worked as an Academic Fellow for the U.S. House Ways and Means (majority) tax staff.
Professor Hanlon holds a BBA from Eastern Illinois University, an MAcc in taxation from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a PhD in accounting from the University of Washington.
Hanlon, Michelle, Kelvin Yeung, and Luo Zuo. Contemporary Accounting Research. Forthcoming. SSRN Preprint.
Hanlon, Michelle, and Michelle Nessa. National Tax Journal Vol. 76, No. 1 (2023): 193-232. SSRN Preprint.
Hanlon, Michelle and Shane Heitzman. Annual Review of Financial Economics Vol. 14, (2022): 509-534.
Hanlon, Michelle. The Accounting Review Vol. 96, No. 5 (2021): 389-401. SSRN Preprint.
Dyreng, Scott, and Michelle Hanlon. In Multinational Corporations in a Changing Global Economy, edited by David Wessel, Fritz Foley, and Jim Hines, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021.
Hanlon, Michelle, Rodrigo Verdi, and Benjamin Yost. The Accounting Review Vol. 96, No. 2 (2021): 333-363. SSRN Preprint.
The SEC is proposing a new rule that would require public companies to disclose their emissions data and create more transparency. Industry experts unpack its implications.
In mergers and acquisitions, it takes more than low interest rates and a healthy stock market to get a deal done. New research pinpoints three unapparent behaviors.
Prof. Michelle Hanlon urges caution in determining AFSI for insurers.
"The lack of a serious accounting system or even basic internal controls contributed to the company's downfall."
"The potential politicization of the FASB will likely lead to lower-quality financial accounting standards and ... earnings.”
Michelle Hanlon discusses a minimum tax for corporations based on the income they report to shareholders.
