Nobel laureate Sir James Mirrlees in Singapore

SINGAPORE — Nobel laureate Sir James Mirrlees was in town earlier today (Oct 1), visiting Stamford American International School for a dialogue session with students. This was followed by a keynote speech delivered at Nanyang Technological University.

At Stamford American International School, he sat down with students to talk about his career and research. The dialogue is part of the 5th ASEAN International Peace Foundation event series.  

Sir Mirrlees was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 for his study on the problem of optimal income taxation. "The work I've done has mainly been recognising that people do not feel like that about taxes and that it apparently even got to the point of discouraging quite a lot of people from earning as much as they might have, which in particular I mean they no longer pay as many taxes as they should," he said during his Nobel laureate interview. 

"I suppose that I'm forced to see that high tax rates do induce quite a lot of people to find ways of avoiding them, or evading them,” he said. 

Photos: Stamford American International School