| Meet the Faculty of the Department of Economics |
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Academic Year 2008-2009
Professors
Moheb A Ghali is Vice Provost for Research and
Dean of the Graduate School. Professor Ghali received his Ph.D. from the
University of Washington in 1967. His fields of interest include econometrics,
economic theory, and production economics. He has published 3 books and over 50
papers in journals such as the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Review of
Economics and Statistics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the International
Journal of Production Economics. As a Senior Fulbright Scholar he taught
econometrics at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and at Cairo University,
Egypt. He served as President of the International Society for Inventory
Research, and the Western Association of Graduate Schools as a member of the
Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools and its Executive
Committee, the Graduate Record Examination Board and its Executive Committee,
and as President of the Board of Trustees of St. Paul's Episcopal School.
Professor Ghali came to Western in 1993 from the University of Hawaii where he
served for the previous ten years as University Director of Research. As
Professor of Economics in Hawaii, Ghali won the Board of Regents Distinguished
Merit Award and the Economics Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award.
Steven Globerman is the Kaiser Professor of International Business and Director of the
Center for International Business. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from New
York University and has been a faculty member at several universities including
York University in Toronto, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver. He has been a visiting faculty member at the University
of California, Irvine, the Helsinki School of Economics and the Stockholm School
of Economics. He has also done extensive public and private sector consulting
including being a member of the research staff of two Canadian Government Royal
Commissions on the economy. His research interests cover a wide range of topics
including international business and multinational corporations, trade and
investment policies, industrial organization and health economics.
Daniel A.
Hagen received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University
of California, Berkeley. After completing his undergraduate degree, he studied
at the University of Oslo in Norway before returning to Berkeley to complete his
Ph.D in 1983. Professor Hagen joined Western’s faculty in 1988. His teaching and
research focuses on environmental and resource economics, and on international
trade. Professor Hagen has published articles on a diversity of topics,
including environmental valuation, energy pricing, natural resource management,
pollution abatement, and international trade. His work on the valuation of
environmental amenities has been cited in numerous textbooks. Professor Hagen
has received the Dean's Research Award on four occasions, the most recent being
in 2006, and has served as a consultant to a number of public agencies,
nongovernmental organizations, and private firms.
Julia L. Hansen received her
Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the
department in 1988 after having taught at the University of Colorado at Denver.
Hansen teaches courses in urban economics, real estate, public finance, and
microeconomics. Her research interests are in urban economics, with a focus on
housing markets. She has published articles on the income elasticity of demand
for housing, the value of a view in residential housing markets, and the
influence of Canadian investment on U.S. residential property values. She edits
the Whatcom County Real Estate Research Report. Hansen is a six-time recipient
of the Dean’s Research Award including receiving an award in 2006.
Dennis R.
Murphy is Dean Emeritus of the College of Business and Economics. He received
his Ph.D. in 1974 from Indiana University. Prior to coming to Western Washington
University, he served on the faculty of Indiana University and of Emory
University in Atlanta. He served as Dean of the College of Business and
Economics at Western Washington University 1983-2007, and served as Interim
Provost and Vice-President of Academic Affairs at Western during 1998-99.
Murphy’s teaching and research interests include international trade and
finance, monetary theory, and money and banking. Murphy serves on the boards of
several organizations including Cascade Financial Corp., Cascade Bank, where he
chairs the Audit & Finance Committee, amongst others. He is Past-President of
both The United Way of Whatcom County and the Rotary Club of Bellingham.
David
M. Nelson received his Ph.D. in 1975 from the University of Oregon and taught at
Oregon State University prior to joining Western in 1977. Nelson’s teaching and
research interests include money and banking, macroeconomics, public finance,
economic education, forensic economics, and the economics of petroleum
marketing. He taught at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan in 1992 and at Centro
Mexicano Internacional in Morelia, Mexico in 1995. Three times his students have
scored highest on the national norming of the Educational Testing Service Money
and Banking Exam. Nelson was awarded a three year CBE Distinguished Teaching
Fellowship in 2005. Nelson serves on the board of the Washington Council on
Economic Education and on the board of Childcare International, a nonprofit
organization devoted to helping the world’s poorest children. He is nationally
known for his work in benchmarking performance in the petroleum marketing and
convenience store industries. Nelson served as Chairman of Department from
1995-2007.
Paul Storer is Chair of the Department. He received his Ph.D. in 1992
from the University of Western Ontario. Prior to joining Western in 1996, he
served as an economist for the Bank of Canada and as a faculty member at the
University of Quebec at Montreal. Storer's teaching and research interests
include macroeconomics, money and banking, labor, and Canadian economic policy
and issues. His current research focuses on economic integration in North
America and on the economics of education. In 1997, 2001, 2004, and 2006 he
received the CBE Dean's Research Award. He received the 2004 “Excellence in
Teaching Award,” one of two awarded each year by the University.
Associate
Professors
Yvonne Durham received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in
1994. Prior to joining Western in 2000, she was a faculty member at the
University of Arkansas. Her teaching and research interests include experimental
economics, industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and economic
education. Yvonne is responsible for coordinating the teaching of principles at
Western. She is currently involved in research projects using experimental
markets to examine market structure, pricing policies, and tax compliance. She
is also involved in designing experiments for the classroom and in evaluating
their effectiveness as a pedagogical tool. She was chosen as the Outstanding
Researcher for the University of Arkansas College of Business for 1999-2000.
Professor Durham received the Dean’s research award in 2006.
Steven E. Henson
received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of Oregon. He joined the
department in 1985 after having taught at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. His teaching and research areas are microeconomics, applied
econometrics and statistics, and natural resource, energy, and environmental
economics. His current research interests include restructuring in resource and
energy markets, international trade and the environment, and environmental
policy. Henson is a two-time recipient of the Dean’s Research Award.
Hart Hodges
is Director of Western’s Center for Economic and Business Research. He received
his Ph.D. in Economics in 1994 from the University of Washington. While at the
University of Washington, Hart received awards for both undergraduate and
graduate teaching instruction. He taught economics from 1993-1995 at the
University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, and then served as the natural resource
damage assessment economist for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Hart also
spent several years working with an economic consulting firm in Alaska. He
joined the faculty at Western in the Fall of 2000. His research interests
include natural resource and environmental economics, and applied business
economics. Hart is currently managing several research projects and public
service efforts with an emphasis on sustainable economic development. Hart is
active in various community groups as part of his responsibilities as the
Director of the Center for Economic and Business Research.
Shawn D. Knabb
received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2001.
Prior to joining Western in 2005 he was a faculty member at the University of
Colorado at Denver. He has also taught at Duke University during the summer
months as a visiting faculty member in the American Economic Association’s
Summer Minority Program and is currently teaching at the University of
California at Santa Barbara. His teaching interests include macroeconomics,
public finance, and economic development and growth. His current research
studies the dynamics of child labor in developing countries and how
expectations, or beliefs, can affect the household decision process. He is also
currently working on projects related to public pension systems and
demographics. Shawn received the Dean’s research award in 2006 and 2007.
John M.
Krieg received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1999. He was a
tenure-track professor at the United States Naval Academy before joining the
faculty at Western in the summer of 2000. Professor Krieg's teaching and
research interests include econometrics, labor economics, and macro. His current
research interests include the economics of education, faculty unions, and the
No Child Left Behind Act. Dr. Krieg currently serves as the President of the
Lynden School District Board of Directors. He received the Dean’s research award
in 2005, 2006 and 2008. In his spare time, Dr. Krieg enjoys fishing and hiking.
Matthew R. Roelofs received his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1996. He taught
at Calvin College during the 1996-97 academic year and joined the faculty at
Western in the Fall of 1997. Roelofs; teaching and research interests include
industrial organization, managerial economics, experimental economics, game
theory, environmental economics, and microeconomic theory. His current research
projects include work on experimental auction markets, information exchange in
research and development, congestion pricing, and experimental methodology. He
received the Dean’s research award in 1998 and in 2002.
Assistant Professors
Brandon Dupont received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 2005. Prior
to joining Western in 2006, he was a Visiting Professor at Wellesley College
where he taught economic history and microeconomics. He has published a number
of articles on diverse topics including the financial crisis of 1893 and the
causes of the under representation of women in information technology jobs. In
addition to these ongoing areas of research, he is currently working on a number
of projects related to the rise of tourism in the U.S. and on the development of
state banking in the late 19th century. His teaching interests are in
microeconomics, the history of economic thought and economic history.
Vinit K.
Jagdish received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2005. Prior to
joining Western in the Fall of 2005, he taught economics at Kent State
University for two years. While at Kent State, he received the Business
Presidents’ Roundtable award for excellence in teaching. His teaching and
research interests include applied microeconomics, managerial economics,
industrial organization and microeconomic theory. His current research examines
the interplay of reputation and managerial decision-making as well as strategic
information transmission in markets.”
Ozan Sula received his Ph.D. from
Claremont Graduate University in 2006. Prior to joining Western in the Fall of
2006, he was a lecturer at California State University – Fullerton. He also
taught at the University of La Verne and Claremont Graduate University. His
teaching interests include international finance, macroeconomics, and money and
banking. His current research studies the behavior of international capital
flows and the financial crises in emerging markets.
Philip B. (Phil) Thompson
has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Arizona. After teaching at Texas
A&M for two years, Phil became Chief Economist for the Missouri Office of the
Public Counsel, a state agency representing residential and small business
ratepayers in proceedings before the Missouri Public Service Commission. He was
there for ten years, performing analyses of utility issues and testifying in
utility cases involving electric, gas, telecommunications, and water companies.
He spent another six years as Assistant Professor at the University of
Missouri-Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology), and
until 2009 was Assistant/Associate Professor at Central Michigan University. His
teaching interests are microeconomics and related areas, and his current
research areas are energy efficiency, gasoline markets, and the socioeconomic
impacts of casinos.
Visiting Assistant Professors
John E. Hayfron received his
Ph.D. in economics from University of Bergen in Norway in 1999. He has taught
principles of micro- and macroeconomics, money and banking, labor economics,
Canadian economic policy, economic history and managerial economics at Coquitlam
College, Douglas College and Kwantlen University College in British Columbia,
Canada. His research is in the area of labor economics with special interest in
the economics of immigration and the economics of gender and race. His
publications have appeared in the Journal of Population Economics, Applied
Economics, and in edited books. Dr. Hayfron has been at Western since the Fall
of 2005.
Farrokh Kahnamoui received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University
in Carbondale IL in 2007. Prior to joining Western in the Fall of 2007 he was a
lecturer at Yeshiva University, Hunter College, Manhattan College and New York
University School of Continuing and Professional Studies all located in New York
City. He has also taught at Southern Illinois University while he was in the
Ph.D. program there. In 2006-2007, he received the Graduate Assistant Teacher of
the Year Award of the economics department at SIU. His teaching interests
include international economics, economics of social issues, history of economic
thought and macroeconomics. His research interests are international trade,
development, role of social institutions in economic growth and economic
systems.
Ronald Oertel received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill in 2007. His research interests lie in the economics of
education, labor, and health. Currently, he is analyzing adults' schooling
choices and the effect of government policies on these choices. His teaching
interests include microeconomics, labor economics, econometrics, and
macroeconomics. Prior to joining Western in the fall of 2007, he taught labor
economics as well as intermediate micro- and macroeconomics at the University of
North Carolina. Senior Instructor Mary Ann Hendryson completed her Master’s
degree at the University of Denver in 1983 and studied in the Ph.D. program at
Washington State University, completing all requirements except the
dissertation. She joined Western’s faculty in 1989. Her fields of concentration
are economic history and resource economics. Hendryson maintains an active
interest in topics related to Canadian economic history and policy. Her most
recent interest is in the field of sports economics. She assists the department
in the teaching of principles of economics, current issues, and sports
economics. Hendryson has received two university faculty development grants.
Instructors
Charles Antholt received his Master’s degree in agricultural
economics from Cornell University in 1972. He has 33 years of international
agricultural, natural resource, and rural development experience. His work
assignments included work in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India,
with the Peace Corps, the United States Agency for International Development,
and The World Bank. His World Bank responsibilities included investments in
technological innovation and dissemination in South Asia and restructuring of
agricultural economies in Ukraine, Azerbajan, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and
Macedonia. This included reforms of price policy, the trade regimes, land
ownership as well as institutional reform with respect to the role of government
in agricultural and rural economies. Mr. Antholt has been teaching courses at
Western since the Fall of 1997. Pamela Whalley completed her B.A. and M.A.
degrees at Indiana University and studied in the Ph.D. program there, completing
all requirements except the thesis. She joined Western’s faculty in 1985 and
teaches courses in principles of economics, managerial economics, money and
banking, and in economic education. As part of her economic education interest,
Whalley regularly teaches courses and conducts workshops for pre and inservice
teachers in the area on a variety of topics and supervises student volunteers
working in the schools. She is the Program Director of the Center for Economic
Education and President of the Washington Council on Economic Education.
Emeritus Professors K. Peter Harder received his Ph.D. from the University of
Nebraska in 1970. He joined the department in 1970 and served as Chairman from
1976-1989. Professor Harder’s teaching and research interests are in the areas
of economic history, history of economic thought, comparative economic systems,
and the economies of the Pacific Rim and the European Union. He has taught in
Western’s teaching abroad program in Cologne, Germany on three separate
occasions, the most recent being Spring, 2004, as part of Western’s
International Studies Program. Dr. Harder retired in 2006 after 36 years of
service and is teaching on a reduced load basis. Allan G. Sleeman received his
Ph.D. in 1983 from Simon Fraser University. He studied at the London School of
Economics between 1957 and 1960. He joined the department in 1977 and served as
its chair from 1989-1995. Dr. Sleeman retired in 2005 and teaches the
introduction to microeconomics once a year. His current interests include
writing about A.W.H. “Bill” Phillips and the early research on the UK Phillips
curve. Economics Department Manager Theresa Gresley joined the Department of
Economics and Business in October of 1975. At the time the College of Business
and Economics was established in 1976, Theresa elected to become the
administrative assistant (now called “department manager”) for the Economics
Department. Theresa assists students with the economics minor evaluations and in
making appointments with the department chair for major declarations, senior
evaluations, etc.
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