Merle Erickson studies the effect of taxes on the pricing and structuring of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; and the use of accounting information in valuation and contracting. He also studies various aspects of accounting fraud. Erickson is a coauthor of the widely used Taxes and Business Strategy textbook and is the author/editor of the casebook, Cases in Tax Strategy. He is also a co-editor of the Journal of Accounting Research, and has made presentations around the country, including at Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Duke University, and UCLA.
Erickson consults periodically on complex GAAP and tax accounting issues and his clients include or have included, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, Fortune 500 companies, international investment banks, international law firms, international accounting firms, and individual taxpayers.
He has been given several awards from the American Taxation Association for his research and teaching. He has received the Outstanding Manuscript Award (twice) as well as an award for teaching innovation. In addition to teaching graduate students at Chicago Booth, Erickson has taught courses to the Tribune Corporation, General Electric Capital Corporation, Andersen Consulting, Accenture, CareerBuilder, and Crowe Chizek among others. He also has been named one of BusinessWeek's Outstanding Faculty at the University of Chicago.
Erickson earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Rockhurst College in 1987, an MBA in 1989 from Arizona State University, and a PhD in accounting from the University of Arizona in 1996. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1996.
In addition to his scholarly activities, Erickson is an avid fisherman. He received the Angler Award from the Billfish Foundation in 2003 for releasing the most striped marlin worldwide that year.
Selected Publications
With S. Wang, "Earnings Management by Acquiring Firms in Stock for Stock Mergers," Journal of Accounting and Economics (April 1999).
With M. Hanlon and E. Maydew, "How much will firms pay for earnings that do not exist? Evidence of taxes paid on fraudulent earnings," The Accounting Review (April 2004).
With M. Hanlon and E. Maydew, "Is There a Link Between Executive Equity Incentives and Accounting Fraud?," Journal of Accounting Research (March 2006).
With S. Wang, "Tax Benefits as a Source of Merger Premiums in Acquisitions of Privately Held Corporations," The Accounting Review (Spring 2007).
With M. Scholes, M. Wolfson, E. Maydew, and T. Shevlin, Taxes and Business Strategy, 4th ed. (Prentice Hall, 2004).
