Don Coursey

Don L. Coursey is the Ameritech Professor of Public Policy Studies at the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. From 1996 to 1998, Coursey served as Dean of the Harris School.  Coursey's research has focused on new ways to understand and balance public preferences among the competing public policy goals. He has also done extensive research on the design of regulation, particularly in the area of the environment and natural resources. Coursey recently led an investigation of environmental equity in Chicago by examining the relationship between the location of older hazardous industrial sites and the racial composition of the surrounding neighborhoods. In 1996, Coursey co-authored The Locality of Waste Sites Within the City of Chicago: A Demographic, Social and Economic Analysis, a report that examined the relationship between active hazardous sites (such as incinerators or landfills), minority populations, and public health concerns. Coursey joined the faculty of the Harris School in 1993. He received both a B.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Arizona, and has previously taught at the University of Wyoming and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He has received the Burlington-Northern Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement in Teaching; the Greater St. Louis Award for Excellence in University Teaching; and the John M. Olin School of Business Teacher of the Year Award in 1989 and 1990.

Donald Cox

Donald Cox
Donald Cox is a professor of Economics at Boston College.  His areas of policy and teaching expertise include labor economics, the economics of the family and statistical analysis.  His current research focuses on intergenerational transfers of money and time, in both developing and developed countries.  His latest paper deals with the connection between reproductive biology and the economics of family behavior.  His research and teaching takes an inter-disciplinary approach, using ideas from fields such as biology, psychology and anthropology to improve economic models.  He is a long-time teacher of statistics and econometrics.  He has served as a consultant for the World Bank and is currently a study section participant at the National Institutes of Health.  He was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.  Cox holds a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University and received his undergraduate degree in economics from Boston College.

Steve Fazzari
Steven M. Fazzari is Associate Director of the Weidenbaum Center and Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis.  His research focuses on theoretical and empirical topics in macroeconomics including the foundations of Keynesian macroeconomics, investment, and the importance of financial structure for macroeconomic performance. His papers have received over 700 hits in the Social Science Citation Index. Recent publications include "Market Power and Inflation," Review of Economics and Statistics, 2000 (with Robert Carpenter and Bruce Petersen); "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities are Useful: A Comment on Kaplan and Zingales," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2000 (with R. Glenn Hubbard and Bruce Petersen); "How Responsive is Business Capital Formation to its User Cost? An Exploration with Micro Data," Journal of Public Economics, 1999 (with Robert Chirinko and Andrew Meyer); and "Aggregate Demand and Firm Behavior: A New Perspective on Keynesian Macroeconomics," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 1998 (with Piero Ferri and Edward Greenberg). He teaches macroeconomics at all levels, and was pleased to receive the Missouri State Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2002. Professor Fazzari received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Richard Mahoney

Richard J. Mahoney
Richard J. Mahoney is the Distinguished Executive in Residence at the Weidenbaum Center.  He was Chairman & CEO of the Monsanto Company from 1983-1995. During that period he changed Monsanto from a largely chemical commodity company to the world leader in Agricultural Biotechnology, a strong player in the pharmaceutical industry, and a company recognized for its forward-thinking environmental policies.  A prolific writer and lecturer on public policy issues, he was a regular contributor to the Sunday New York Times as a columnist for “From the Desk of” and “Viewpoint.”  He has written numerous op-eds on subjects including Regulation, Taxation, Tort Law, Environmental Policy, Corporate Governance, Health Care, Science Policy, Corporate Political Contributions, and Trade Policy.  He established the CEO Series at the Weidenbaum Center — a collection of original essays by prominent corporate CEOs.  His essay, “The Anatomy of a Public Policy Crisis,” is widely quoted and used in university classwork.  He holds honorary degrees from Exeter College, Oxford University, England; UMASS; University of Missouri-St. Louis; and Westminster College.  

Russell Roberts

Russell Roberts
Roberts is Director of the Weidenbaum Center's Media Retreat and Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He is interested in making economic ideas accessible to non-economists. His latest book is The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance (MIT Press, 2001). Written in the form of a novel, it takes a provocative look at corporate responsibility, government regulation and the role of business in our lives. His novel on international trade policy, The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism, was named one of the top ten books of 1994 by Business Week and one of the best books of 1994 by the Financial Times. An updated and revised edition was published in the spring of 2000.  Roberts is a frequent commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." In addition to numerous academic publications, he has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Steven Smith

Steven Smith
Steven Smith is the Director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy.  He is the Kate M. Gregg Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1980. He has worked on Capitol Hill in several capacities and has served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has authored or edited nine books on U.S. congressional politics and parliamentary politics in Russia, including a recent book, Party Influence in Congress (Cambridge).  His  textbook on congressional politics, The American Congress, is in its fifth edition.  He is working on books on party leadership in the U.S. Senate and presidential-parliamentary relations in Russia.

Murray Weidenbaum

Murray Weidenbaum
Murray Weidenbaum has been an economist in three worlds — business, government and academia. He holds the Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professorship at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also serves as Honorary Chairman of the University's Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy. He was chairman of the Congressional Trade Deficit Review Commission in 1999-2000. In 1981 and 1982, Dr. Weidenbaum was President Reagan's first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He helped to formulate the economic policy of the Reagan Administration and was a key spokesman for the Administration on economic and financial issues. In 1983-89, he was a member of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board. Earlier, Dr. Weidenbaum was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Nixon Administration. He also served as the Corporate Economist at the Boeing Company. He is a member of the board of directors of Harbour Group, Macroeconomic Advisers, and Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a member of advisory boards of the Congressional Joint Tax Committee, the Center for Strategic Tax Reform, the American Council for Capital Formation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He received a B.B.A. from City College of New York, an M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has been a faculty member at Washington University since 1964 and was Chairman of the Economics Department from 1966 to 1969.