Paul H. O’Neill
School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Areas of Interest:

Governmental finance, especially questions of policy and administration of sales and property taxation

State lotteries

Public budgeting

Public finance in countries of the former Soviet Union

Curriculum Vitae

With profound sadness, we report that John Mikesell passed away on September 12, 2019. 

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John L. Mikesell was s an expert in governmental finance, specializing in sales and property tax policy and administration and public budgeting systems. He wrote Fiscal Administration, Analysis and Applications for the Public Sector, the standard public finance and budgeting textbook in graduate public affairs program, now in its tenth edition. Mikesell's work on government finance and taxation has appeared in journals such as Public Budgeting & Finance, Public Finance Quarterly, National Tax Journal, Public Administration Review, and Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting, and Financial Management.

Mikesell had extensive international experience as a financial consultant and fiscal economist. He has worked with World Bank public budget system reform missions in the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. He  also worked on USAID intergovernmental fiscal restructuring projects in Ukraine and the Russian Federation, and assisted the People's Republic of China in developing a property tax. Since the 1970s, Mikesell has served on the Revenue Forecast Technical Committee as it produced the Indiana revenue forecast for the state budget. He worked on state tax revision studies in Indiana, Minnesota, New York, and Hawaii.

Mikesell  received the Wildavsky Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in Public Budgeting and Finance from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, the Steven D. Gold Award from the National Tax Association, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the National Conference of State Legislatures for Outstanding Contributions to State and Local Fiscal Policy, and the Tax Foundation Award for Achievement in State Tax Reform.