A professor in LU’s College of Business receives recognition for her research in corporate tax

Assistant Professor of Accounting and Business Law, Marina Ruseva, was honored with the Federation of Business Disciplines Award for her dissertation research, “Executive Equity Compensation and Corporate Tax Behavior: The Role of Cash ETR Persistence.”

The award, presented March 11-14 at the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association, Southeast Region held in conjunction with the Federation of Business Disciplines, recognizes an outstanding

contribution in research and represents the best paper of those submitted for presentation consideration.

“I am thankful for the opportunity to present my research at the American Accounting Association, Southwest Region,” said Ruseva. “It was an honor to have my work recognized by the Federation of Business Disciplines. During these challenging times, this recognition has been a great source of motivation to remain research active.”

The paper is based on Ruseva’s dissertation, which examines the association between executive compensation and corporate tax behavior. She measures the persistence of firm cash effective tax rates  over time which captures the state of the existing tax strategy as well as its effect on future tax outcomes.

“I document that when cash ETR is informative about the future, executive compensation provides managers with the proper incentives to increase corporate tax savings while maintaining the level of tax risk,” said Ruseva. “With respect to the role of managerial incentives, there are two competing theories - efficient contracting and managerial rent extraction. By considering the state of the extant firm tax strategy, my research supports the efficient contracting camp.

Ruseva’s research stems from her knowledge of the industry. Prior to working on her PhD., Ruseva worked for Deloitte Tax, LLP. For the past year, Ruseva has served Lamar University teaching federal individual and entity taxation. She also helps prepare students to sit for the CPA exam.

“While I enjoy research, what drives me is the connection with our students,” said Ruseva.

*Vivek Natarajan is a professor in Lamar University's College of Business who also happens to be the president of the Federation of Business Disciplines.