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Foreign Economies
In addition to her teaching duties in public finance, sports economics, statistics and econometrics, Professor Jo Beth Mertens works as a fiscal consultant for such giants as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Mertens has served as consultant for the Ministry of Finance and Tax Administration in Georgetown, Guyana; the fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund in Pristina, Kosovo; and the World Bank. In addition, she has served the U.S. Treasury as senior tax adviser to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was Head of the Revenue Office, Central Fiscal Authority in Kosovo.
In April 2003, Mertens was one of six experts to offer counsel at the South Asia Foreign Direct Investment Roundtable in the Republic of Maldives, called to increase foreign investment in Asia. In her address to the panel, Mertens highlighted administration and compliance costs with regard to corporate tax and indirect tax of various regions. She also gave her impressions of investor ability to meet compliance and audit responsibilities, and offered suggestions on how to improve the processes and procedures from an investor’s perspective.
Mertens’ work spans more than two decades. Her other activities include: USAID tax consultant for the Economic Reform Project in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia; USAID tax consultant for the Kosovo Cluster and Business Support Project; World Bank consultant for the Social Sector Adjustment Credit Mission to Macedonia and the Nigerian Tax Reform Project; resident adviser to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation in Moscow; resident adviser to the Ministry of Finance for Ukraine in Kiev; and international development consultant on the Malawi Tax Reform Project for the Harvard Institute for International Development.
Recent Publications:
“An Analysis of the Value Added Tax on the Dairy Industry in Kosovo” Kosovo Cluster and Business Support Project, Prishtina, Kosovo, August 9, 2005. http://pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNADD887.pdf
“Lessons for Mongolia from the Russian Federation Personal Income Tax Reform of 2001” Mongolia Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness Project, Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, March 2005.
“Eliminating Investment Incentives: Indonesia and Uganda” Mongolia Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness Project, Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, March 2005.
“Benchmarking Mongolia’s Tax Performance” Mongolia Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness Project, Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, March 2005.
“Recent Tax Reform in Slovakia, Estonia, and Romania,” Mongolia Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness Project, Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, March 2005
“Comments: Compliance Costs of Taxation In A Transition Country: The Example of Croatia,” National Tax Association Proceedings—2004.
“Measuring Tax Effort in Central and Eastern Europe,” Public Finance and Management Volume Three, Number Four (2003).
“VAT Revenues in the Russian Federation: The Role of Tax Administration in Their Decline,” (co-authored with Jean Tesche) Public Budgeting and Finance 22(Summer 2002), 87-113.
“Kosovo: A Program for a Sustainable Tax System,” Emil Sunley, Robert Conrad, Kristina Kostial, and Jo Beth Mertens. Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund, October 2000.
“Taxation in Multilevel Federations: Problems, Solutions, and Practices in Canada and the United States,” Jo Beth Mertens, in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Framework for Federation Level Personal and Corporate Income Taxes, Ved P. Gandhi, John King, and John Norregaard. Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund, March 1996.
“FYR Macedonia Social Sectors Adjustment Credit Draft Issues Paper,”
Jo Beth Mertens (co-authored). The World Bank, June 1997.
“Annex IV: Payroll Tax Compliance,” Jo Beth Mertens in Aide Memoire: Social Sectors Adjustment Credit, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, The World Bank, June 1997.
Interview opportunities and additional background information may be requested through the Office of Communications, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York. Phone: (315) 781-3540. After business hours, Communications staff members are accessible through contact information on their answering machine at that number.
Jo Beth Mertens has taught economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges since 1997. In December 2005, she was named New York State Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Mertens taught in Vietnam as a part of the Fulbright Economic Teaching Program in Fall 2003. She gave the speech at the 2004 senior dinner. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, a master’s degree from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Emory University.
Mertens has served as consultant to several countries, including Guyana and Kosovo. She has served the U.S. Treasury as senior tax adviser to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and has worked on similar projects in Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and Nigeria. She is the author of several publications and professional papers.
In addition to Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Mertens has taught economics at SUNY Buffalo, Florida Atlantic University, Dekalb Community College, Emory University and Duke University.
Mertens is a member of several professional organizations, such as the American Economics Association, the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, the International Association of Feminist Economics and the National Tax Association.