Neil H. Buchanan (George Washington), The Role of Economics in Tax Scholarship, in Beyond Economic Efficiency (David A. Brennen (Dean, Kentucky), Karen B. Brown (George Washington) & Darryl Jones (Florida A&M), eds.) (2012):

One of the fundamental tenets of modern tax policy analysis is that we should be concerned with so-called economic efficiency. Along with equity and administrability, efficiency is widely held to be a desirable and important goal. Indeed, to some analysts, efficiency is the most important of those goals, and perhaps the only appropriate goal of tax policy. Even for those who still take seriously non-efficiency concerns, however, efficiency is at least a central element of tax policy analysis, to be weighed against the other two goals (and, perhaps, some others).