Professorships and Fellows

Professorships

Jennifer Doleac

PERC Professor

Jennifer Doleac is an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, Director of the Justice Tech Lab, and host of the Probable Causation podcast. She is also a Nonresident Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, and a research fellow at IZA. Professor Doleac studies the economics of crime and discrimination, with a particular focus on the effects of technology on public safety. Past and current work addresses topics such as DNA databases, gun violence, prisoner reentry, and the unintended consequences of “ban the box” policies. Her research has been published in leading academic journals including the Review of Economics and Statistics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the Economic Journal. Professor Doleac’s work has been highlighted in an array of media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Time. Professor Doleac holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Williams College. She has spoken at Interpol and the White House and has testified before Congress.

Dr. Doleac's CV

Mark Hoekstra

Rex B. Grey Professorship

Mark Hoekstra is a Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, and holds the Private Enterprise Research Center Rex B. Grey Professorship. He received his B.A. in Economics from Hope College in 2001 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Florida in 2006. His primary areas of research are labor economics and the economics of education, where he focuses on questions that have direct relevance for public policy. His research has been published in top economics journals including American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Public Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics, and has been covered by numerous media outlets. He is currently an Associate Editor at the Journal of Human Resources. He also holds appointments as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and as a Research Fellow at IZA, and was awarded the 2012 IZA Young Labor Economist Award.

Dr. Hoekstra's CV, Website

Jonathan Meer

Mary Julia and George R. Jordan, Jr. Professor of Public Policy

Jonathan Meer is the Mary Julia and George R. Jordan, Jr. Professor of Public Policy at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on charitable giving and the economics of education. His recent work examines whether fundraising creates new giving, how Teach for America teachers impact college-going among low-income students, and how the interaction between teacher and student gender affects student performance. He is a Private Enterprise Research Center professor and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dr. Meer's CV

Steven Puller

Professor in Free Enterprise

Steve Puller is the PERC Professor in Free Enterprise at the Department of Economics at Texas A&M University. He received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. in Economics from University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Faculty Affiliate with the E2e Project. His primary research areas are empirical industrial organization and the study of energy markets. He teaches courses in Industrial Organization, Energy Economics, and Econometrics, and in 2014 received the Association of Former Students College-Level Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching.

Dr. Puller's CV, Website

Sarah Zubairy

PERC Professor

Sarah Zubairy is an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University and is a PERC Professor. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University and her Bachelor’s in Mathematics from the University of Rochester. Her research focuses on empirical macroeconomics and monetary economics, with a particular focus on fiscal policy related issues. Her recent work focuses on quantifying government spending multipliers for the U.S, in good versus bad times using historical data and investigating the interaction between effectiveness of monetary policy and household indebtedness. Her research has been published in top economics journals including Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, International Economic Review and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Dr. Zubairy's CV, Website

Fellows

Li Gan

PERC Fellow

Li Gan is a Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. In 1998 Dr. Gan received his Ph.D. in Economics from University of California at Berkeley, and he served on the faculty at University of Texas at Austin prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M in 2005. He currently serves as the Director of the Masters Program in Economics at Texas A&M. He is a Private Enterprise Research Center Research Fellow and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Dr. Gan's CV

Timothy J. Gronberg

PERC Fellow

Timothy J. Gronberg is a Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in 1978, and has served on the faculty at Texas A&M since 1977. He was Assistant Department Head from 1989-91, and Department Head of Economics from 1991-96. In 2010, he resumed his role as the Department Head. Professor Gronberg has been a PERC Research Fellow since 1994.

Jack Meyer

PERC Fellow

Jack Meyer is a PERC Fellow and Visiting Research Scholar at the Private Enterprise Center. For the past decade he has visited PERC for several weeks each January and February. Meyer received a B.S degree in Honors Mathematics from Michigan State University in 1970, an M.S degree in Engineering-Economic Systems in 1972 and a Ph.D. in Economics in 1974 both from Stanford University. From 1974 - 1983 he served as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. From 1983 to the present, he is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. His research focuses on decision making under risk with applications to agricultural, financial, and insurance economics. Meyer has published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Finance, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty and many other journals.

Dr. Meyer's CV

Thomas R. Saving

Director Emeritus & PERC Fellow

Dr. Thomas R. Saving is the Director Emeritus of the Private Enterprise Research Center and a University Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Texas A&M University. Dr. Saving received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and served on the faculty at the University of Washington at Seattle and Michigan State University before moving to Texas A&M University in 1968. Dr. Saving's research has covered the areas of antitrust, monetary, and health economics. He has served as a referee or as a member of the editorial board of the major United States economics journals and as co-editor of Economic Inquiry from 1997-2006. His current research emphasis is on the benefit of markets in solving the pressing issues in health care and Social Security. He is the co-editor of Medicare Reform: Issues and Answers, University of Chicago Press, 1999, and the co-author of The Economics of Medicare Reform, W.E. Upjohn Institute, 2000, The Diagnosis and Treatment of Medicare, AEI, 2007, and wrote A Century of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, which was published in 2019. Dr. Saving was elected to the post of President of the Western Economics Association, the Southern Economics Association and the Association of Private Enterprise Education. In 2000, President Clinton appointed Dr. Saving as a Public Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds; he served as Trustee until 2007. He also served on President Bush's bipartisan Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

Dr. Saving's CV

Tatevik Sekhposyan

PERC Fellow

Dr. Tatevik Sekhposyan is a PERC Fellow and an Associate Professor of Macroeconomics at Texas A&M University. Dr. Sekhposyan earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master’s in Economics from Ohio University. Previously, she worked as a Senior Analyst at the Bank of Canada prior to joining the Department of Economics. Currently, Dr. Sekhposyan serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Econometrics and is on the executive committee of the Society of Non-Linear Dynamics and Econometrics. Her research primarily focuses on developing methods for model evaluation, with particular emphasis on inference in the context of time variation. Her most recent work, “Macroeconomic Uncertainty Indices for the Euro and its Individual Member Countries,” with Barbara Rossi was published in Empirical Economics. Dr. Sekhposyan has been published in several other journals including Journal of Applied Econometrics, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, International Journal of Forecasting, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, as well as The Regional Economist.

Dr. Sekhposyan's CV , Website