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Contributors to Michigan at the Millennium

Charles L. Ballard is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He has been on the faculty at MSU since 1983, when he received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests include using computer simulation models to assess the efficiency and distributional effects of policy instruments, such as income taxes, consumption taxes, tariffs, wage subsidies, credits for health insurance, and environmentally motivated taxes. He has served as a consultant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Treasury, and with research institutes in Australia, Denmark, and Finland. His other books include A General Equilibrium Model for Tax Policy Evaluation (with Don Fullerton, John B. Shoven, and John Whalley, 1985) and Real Economics for Real People (2nd edition, 2001).

Timothy J. Bartik is senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a non-profit research organization in Kalamazoo. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. Dr. Bartik’s research focuses on state and local economic development, local labor markets, and poverty. He has written two books, Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies? (1991), and Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help? (2001), as well as numerous scholarly articles.

Dale Belman is an Associate Professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University and a Research Associate at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of research include labor market regulation, collective bargaining, and employment relations in the public sector.

Rebecca M. Blank is Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, and co-director of the National Poverty Center, funded by HHS to provide research on the causes and consequences of poverty, and on the effects of policies related to poverty. Prior to coming to Michigan, she served as a Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and was a faculty member at Northwestern University and Princeton University. Her recent work includes the books It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty (Princeton University Press, 1997), Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform (jointly edited with David Card, Russell Sage Press, 2000) and The New World of Welfare (jointly edited with Ron Haskins, Brookings Press, 2001).

Richard N. Block is Professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. He is the author of numerous articles and books on labor-management relations, labor and employment law, the relationship between law and practice in industrial relations, industrial relations and structural economic change, employee privacy, international labor standards, and government sponsored employee training. He is an experienced labor-management neutral, listed on all major panels and including several private panels. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University in the City of New York, the Centre for Industrial Relations at the University of Toronto, and the Department of Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kenneth D. Boyer is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He is past president of the Transportation and Public Utilities Group of the American Economic Association, and is the author of the nation’s leading textbook in transportation economics. He has chaired or been a member of numerous National Academies of Sciences committees concerning transportation economics.

A. Thomas Clay is a Senior Research Associate with the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. He joined the Research Council staff in November 1997. In 1997, he took early retirement after thirty years with the State of Michigan, serving as Deputy State Treasurer from 1991 to 1997 and Director of the State’s Executive Budget Offices for fifteen years prior to joining the Treasury staff. He has degrees in economics from Miami University (Ohio) and Michigan State University.

Paul N. Courant is Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Faculty Associate in the Institute for Social Research, and Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan. He has held numerous leadership positions at UM since he joined the faculty in 1974, and has served as a Senior Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. Courant has authored half a dozen books and over sixty monographs and papers covering a broad range of topics in economics and public policy, including tax policy, local economic development, gender differences in pay, housing, radon and public health, and relationships between economic growth and environmental policy. He holds a B.A. in History from Swarthmore College (1968); an M.A. in Economics from Princeton University (1973); and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University (1974).

David B. Crary is Associate Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University, with research and teaching specialties in macroeconomic and regional economic forecasting and policy. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he regularly produced economic forecasts for the U.S., Michigan, and metropolitan areas in Michigan.

Joan P. Crary is an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan's Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, where she is a principal co-author of econometric models of the national and Michigan economies. She is a specialist in economic forecasting, focusing on the
economy and finances of the State of Michigan.

Julie Berry Cullen has been an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan since she received her Ph.D. in 1997 from MIT. Her primary research interests are the economics of education, intergovernmental relations, and social insurance. Recent publications include "Does Unemployment Insurance Crowd Out Spousal Labor Supply?" (Journal of Labor Economics) and "Crime, Urban Flight, and the Consequences for Cities (Review of Economics and Statistics).

Sandra K. Danziger is Associate Professor of Social Work, and Director, Michigan Program on Poverty and Social Welfare Policy, at the University of Michigan. Her primary research interests are the impact of public programs on the well being of low-income families, poverty policy, trends in child and family well-being, gender issues across the life course, program evaluation, and qualitative research methods. Dr. Danziger’s current projects address the implementation of welfare-reform policies and their impacts for low-income families and children.

Sheldon Danziger is Henry J. Meyer Collegiate Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director of the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on trends in poverty and inequality and the effects of economic and demographic changes and government social programs on disadvantaged groups. He is the co-author of America Unequal (Harvard University Press, 1995) and Detroit Divided (Russell Sage Foundation, 2000) and co-editor of numerous books, including Child Poverty and Deprivation in the Industrialized Countries, 1945-1995 (Oxford University Press, 1997), Economic Conditions and Welfare Reform (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1999), Coping with Poverty: The Social Contexts of Neighborhood, Family and Work in the African-American Community (University of Michigan Press, 2000), Securing the Future: Investing in Children (Russell Sage Foundation, 2000), and Understanding Poverty (Harvard University Press, 2002).

Kenneth J. Darga is Michigan's State Demographer, based at the Library of Michigan in Lansing. He is a graduate of Boston College, and he holds graduate degrees in Social Policy and in Economic Demography from the University of Michigan. He is the author of two books on the census.

Alan V. Deardorff is John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University in 1971. Since 1970, he has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he served as Chair from 1991 to 1995. He is co-author, with Robert M. Stern, of The Michigan Model of World Production and Trade and Computational Analysis of Global Trading Arrangements, and he has published numerous articles on aspects of international trade theory and policy, including theories of the patterns and effects of trade, and, with Professor Stern and with Drusilla K. Brown, computable general equilibrium models of trade policy.

Douglas C. Drake is Associate Director of the State Policy Center at Wayne State University. Mr. Drake had a long career in state government prior to joining Wayne State, beginning with the Michigan Department of Treasury in 1968. He has previously served as Director, Office of Education and Infrastructure, in the Michigan Department of Management and Budget, and Director of the Office of Revenue and Tax Analysis. Mr. Drake also worked for the Michigan Legislature for over a decade, serving as Staff Director for the House Taxation Committee and Co-Director of the House Majority Policy Staff.

Peter Eisinger is Professor of Urban Affairs and Director of the State Policy Center in the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs at Wayne State University. Before coming to Wayne State, he taught at the University of Wisconsin, where he was Director of the La Follette Institute of Public Affairs from 1991-1996. He is the author or co-author of seven books and numerous articles and monographs on urban politics, economic development, and hunger in America.

George A. Erickcek is the Senior Regional Analyst for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. His research focuses on analyzing issues in regional economics and regional public policy. He also writes the Business Outlook for West Michigan, the Institute’s quarterly report, which examines economic conditions in West Michigan. He joined the Institute in 1987.

Abel Feinstein is an independent economic consultant specializing in the Michigan economy and economic data systems. Among other projects, Mr. Feinstein has co-authored Michigan: The High-Technology Automotive State, produced by the Center for Automotive Research, Altarum and Employment Stability Analysis for the Michigan Economy, in affiliation with the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan. Mr. Feinstein was formerly a labor market research manager at the Michigan Employment Security Commission, with primary responsibility for industry-occupation forecasts and special projects. Mr. Feinstein supervised development of the 1996 edition of the Michigan Statistical Abstract.

Naomi E. Feldman is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Michigan. She holds a B.S. in Economics and French from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a M.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan. She is a research assistant at the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan Business School.

John N. (Jake) Ferris is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. His professional career focused on agricultural marketing, outlook, and economic development (domestic and international), with responsibilities in extension, teaching, and research. He developed and maintains AGMOD, an econometric/simulation model of U.S. agriculture with a satellite model on Michigan, which generates year-to-year forecasts for the following 10 years. McGraw-Hill published his textbook, Agricultural Prices and Commodity Market Analysis, in 1997.

Susan P. Fino is a professor of political science at Wayne State University. She received her B.A. from Johns Hopkins and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Professor Fino has a special interest in state supreme courts and state constitutional law. She has authored two books and numerous articles in this area.

Ronald C. Fisher is Professor in the Department of Economics and the Department of Accounting at Michigan State University, where he also serves as Director of the Honors College. Professor Fisher specializes in the study of government finance and taxation, particularly regarding state and local governments. He has authored the leading textbook in the field, State and Local Public Finance, and has written more than 75 professional articles, research reports, and books on public finance topics. He also has served as Deputy Treasurer for the State of Michigan, as research economist for the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, as Visiting Fellow at the Federalism Research Centre at the Australian National University, and as a consultant to a number of states and several federal government agencies.

George A. Fulton is a senior research scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, where he is director of labor market research. In addition, he holds an appointment as senior research scientist in the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, Department of Economics. He is a specialist in economic forecasting and regional economic development, focusing on the state of Michigan and its local governments. His research also explores the regional economic effects of national policies, particularly those directed at the automotive, trucking, and tobacco industries.

Elisabeth R. Gerber is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on the policy consequences of electoral laws and state and local political institutions. Her current research involves studies of local land use policy, intergovernmental cooperation, local political accountability, and the dynamics of local ballot initiatives. Professor Gerber received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1991. Before joining the Ford School faculty in 2001, she held faculty appointments at Caltech (1991-1994) and UC San Diego (1994-2001).

John H. Goddeeris is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He has been a member of the MSU Economics Department since 1980, serving as Director of Graduate Programs from 1988-1992 and Department Chair from 1996-2001. In 1993, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Congressional Budget Office. Dr. Goddeeris’s research interests primarily involve the economics of health care.

Allen C. Goodman received his A.B. from The University of Michigan in 1969 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1976. Since 1986, he has been Professor of Economics at Wayne State University, where he specializes in urban economics and in health care economics.

Donald R. Grimes is a senior research associate in the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan. He also works as a consultant with Michigan Futures and the Employment Research Corporation. His work includes forecasting economic activity in the metropolitan areas and counties of Michigan, analysis of economic development programs, including a study of the effectiveness of business incubator programs, and identification of labor shortage occupations.

Jeffrey P. Guilfoyle is an economist for the Office of Revenue and Tax Analysis in the Michigan Department of Treasury. His responsibilities include forecasting and tracking state tax receipts, estimating the impact of legislation on state revenues, and providing economic research support. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University. His dissertation on the tax incidence and housing market effects of Michigan’s 1994 school finance reforms received an honorable mention in the National Tax Association’s Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation competition.

Gloria E. Helfand is an Associate Professor of Environmental Economics in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan since 1996; previously she was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Davis. Her research expertise includes the effects of different regulatory approaches to pollution policy, environmental policy analysis, environmental justice, and non-point source pollution policy. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental and resource economics and environmental policy analysis. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College, a master’s degree from Washington University, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

James R. Hines, Jr., is a Professor of economics, public policy, and business economics at the University of Michigan, and serves as research director of its Office of Tax Policy Research. Not surprisingly, his specialty is taxation. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, taught previously at Princeton and Harvard, and was once an economist at the United States Department of Commerce.

Donald F. Holecek is a Professor in the Department of Park, Recreation, and Tourism Resources at Michigan State University. He is also Director of Michigan State University's Travel, Tourism and Recreation Resource Center and its World Travel and Tourism Tax Policy Center. He is a past president of the Central States Chapter of the International Travel and Tourism Research Association and has served on the Board of Directors of the International Travel and Tourism Research Association.

Saul H. Hymans is Professor of Economics and Statistics and Director of the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics at The University of Michigan. Professor Hymans has been on the Michigan faculty since 1964, and his research focuses on macroeconometric modeling and forecasting. In 1984, and again in 1987, Professor Hymans received the national Blue Chip Annual Economic Forecasting Award, in recognition of "accuracy, timeliness and professionalism" in economic forecasting. Professor Hymans has been the U.S. forecaster for the Pacific Economic Outlook Project of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council since 1988. The author of numerous journal articles and research papers, Professor Hymans traveled to the (former) Soviet Union on a U.S. scientific exchange delegation, and has been a visiting scholar in Israel, Stockholm, and Hong Kong.

George E. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan. He has written on a variety of labor market issues since he joined the Michigan faculty in 1966, and was also Director of the Office of Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Labor and a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers.

Arlen Leholm is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. He is an Extension specialist in product agriculture and international development, and the former state director of Michigan State University Extension. He has held university positions in North Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Susanna Loeb is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Stanford University. Her work addresses education policy issues, including school finance reform and teacher labor markets. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 1998. She has been writing about school finance in Michigan since the implementation of Proposal A in 1994.

Eric W. Lupher is a Senior Research Associate at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, where he has been on staff since 1987. He holds degrees from Michigan State University and Wayne State University.

David Martin is a researcher with Wayne State University's College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs. He possesses expertise in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for public policy analysis and crime mapping. His academic research focuses on the spatial distribution of crime in Detroit and its implications for law enforcement and community approaches to preventing and controlling crime. He is the author of Crime in Metropolitan Detroit, and has published several articles and book chapters on GIS and crime policy. Dr. Martin helped develop GIS capabilities within the Detroit Police Department. His current research includes a spatial analysis of gun violence patterns in Wayne County, Michigan, and a community GIS initiative. Dr. Martin has developed a professional development seminar course entitled "Data-Driven Decision-Making: Introduction to Theory and Practice," for the WSU Department of Political Science. Dr. Martin was also a recent workshop scholar at the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Sciences.

Lawrence W. Martin received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1982. Since then he has served on the faculty at Michigan State University. A specialist in Public Economics, Economic Theory, and Law and Economics, he has published papers on illegal pollution, smuggling, tax incidence, search unemployment, unemployment insurance, and welfare economics. He has also served as consultant to the U.S. Department of Labor and the States of Vermont, Minnesota, and Michigan. He teaches a wide range of courses, including Principles, Law and Economics, and Public Economics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Christopher D. Maxwell is Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research interests include the social control and criminal justice processing of intimate partner violence, the efficacy of aggression and delinquency prevention programs, and the impact of social and ecological contexts on patterns of delinquency, crime, and criminal justice decision making. Dr. Maxwell is a graduate of Rutgers University (Ph.D., 1998, M.A., 1994) and Indiana University-Bloomington (B.A., 1990).

Sheila Royo Maxwell is Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She obtained her doctorate degree at Rutgers University in 1994, and joined Michigan State University the same year. Before coming to MSU, Dr. Maxwell was a research fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in New York City. She is currently pursuing research on the effects of policies regarding illicit drug use in Michigan and neighboring states, and court processing and decision-making. Other research interests include cross-cultural patterns of delinquency and victimization, behavioral responses to sanctioning, and the efficacy of correctional interventions.

Paul L. Menchik received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He previously was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has served in Academic Visitor positions at the London School of Economics, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University. Menchik has advised or worked for both state and federal agencies, and has served as Visiting Scholar at the Congressional Budget Office, and as Senior Economist for Economic Policy at the Office of Management and Budget-Executive Office of the President, working on a range of issues in public finance.

Gary S. Olson was appointed as Director of the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency, by the Senate Fiscal Agency Governing Board, effective 1 January 1991. As Director of the Senate Fiscal Agency, he is the principal fiscal advisor to the Michigan Senate. Mr. Olson directs a staff of 34 people whose primary responsibilities are State budget analysis and analysis of all proposed legislation being considered by the Senate. Prior to his appointment as Senate Fiscal Agency Director, he served as Deputy Director of the Agency for five years. Previously, Mr.
Olson had served as Senior Economist to the Senate Fiscal Agency and Chief Committee Aide to the Taxation Committee of the Michigan House of Representatives. Mr. Olson has 24 years of
service with the Michigan Legislature. Mr. Olson has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Masters Degree in Economics from Michigan State University.

Leslie E. Papke is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. Her research interests in public economics include tax-deferred saving and individual saving behavior, 401(k) pension plans features and participation, the composition of pension coverage, and pension fund finance. Her research interests in state and local public finance include business taxation and economic development, inter-jurisdictional tax competition, and state enterprise zone programs. She has served on the board of the National Tax Association. She is currently a Research Fellow of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. She received her B.A. in economics from Wellesley College in 1982. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987.

Jay B. Rising was appointed State Treasurer by Governor Jennifer Granholm, effective 6 January 2003. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Rising practiced law with Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, P.L.C. His practice areas included Public Law, State and Municipal Finance, Public Securities, and Development Finance. Mr. Rising also served the citizens of Michigan as Deputy State Treasurer for Policy Development and Finance and as Chief Deputy State Treasurer between 1983 and 1991. Mr. Rising holds a law degree from Wayne State University. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Earl M. Ryan is President of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. He was President of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute from 1987 to 1994 and President of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana from 1984 to 1987. He holds degrees in political science from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University.

Gary Sands, AICP, is Associate Professor in the Graduate Urban Planning Program at Wayne State University. He received a Master of Urban Planning degree from Wayne and a doctorate in Housing and Public Policy from Cornell University. He is a member of the Executive Advisory Committee of the Victor Institute for Responsible Land Development and Use.

Kristin S. Seefeldt is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Michigan’s Poverty Research and Training Center in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. For more than 10 years, she has conducted research on a variety of social policy issues, specifically, policies related to welfare and employment and training programs for low-income people. She is the author of numerous articles and reports on these topics.

Joel Slemrod is the Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Business School, and Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics. He also serves as Director of the Office of Tax Policy Research, an interdisciplinary research center housed at the Business School. Professor Slemrod received the A.B. degree from Princeton University in 1973 and the Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1980. He joined the economics department at the University of Minnesota in 1979. In 1983-84 he was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and in 1984-85 he was the senior staff economist for tax policy at the President's Council of Economic Advisers. He has been at Michigan since 1987.

Raymond D. Vlasin is a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Resource Development at Michigan State University. He has devoted his professional career to community and economic development in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and nationally. He has served the Federal Government as director of the Natural Resource Economics Division of Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Congress as Staff Economist for the House Public Works Committee.

Michelle F. Wilsey is a utility consultant specializing in strategic business issues, including utility service unbundling and restructuring for competitive markets, as well as regulatory issues and public policy trends affecting the energy and telecommunication industries. Prior to establishing her independent consulting practice, she was the Associate Director (1996 – 2002) of the Institute of Public Utilities, Michigan State University. She led the Institute’s research program and managed the publication of “Public Utilities in Japan: Past, Present and Future”, by the Japan Society of Public Utility Economics; “Letting Go: Deregulating the Process of Deregulation”, by Alfred Kahn; and “Promoting Competition in Michigan Telecommunications Markets Through Innovative Legislation”, by Werner Sichel and Donald L. Alexander. Prior to joining the Institute, she served as the Assistant Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (C.I.T.I.), Columbia Business School. She holds a B.S. (economics, political science, international studies) and M.A. (telecommunications) from Michigan State University.

John R. Wolfe is Senior Project Engineer and Economist at Limno-Tech, Inc., where he is also Manager for Engineering and Science. He is a member of the American Academy of Environmental Engineering, and was previously Associate Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. His areas of expertise include surface water quality modeling, including contaminated sediments; wastewater treatment and permitting; groundwater protection; and environmental economics. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University, a Master of Science in Environmental and Water Resource Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Stephen A. Woodbury is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University and a Senior Economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute. He has also held appointments at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Stirling (U.K.), and was Deputy Director of the Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation (U.S. Department of Labor) during 1993-94. His books include Search Theory and Unemployment (co-edited with Carl Davidson, 2002), Employee Benefits and Labor Markets in Canada and the United States (co-edited with William Alpert, 2000), Reform of the Unemployment Insurance System (co-edited with Laurie Bassi, 1998), and The Tax Treatment of Fringe Benefits (co-authored with Wei-Jang Huang, 1991). He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981.

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