Education:

Ph.D. in Economics

George Mason University, 2012 to 2015

Thesis Title: “Empirical Studies of Emergency Response Services (9-1-1) and an Examination of Moral Hazard in Health Insurance”

M.A. in Economics

California State University (SJSU), 2011 to 2012

Master’s Thesis: “Advisor Induced Demand and Moral Hazard in the Third-party Payer System”

B.A. in Economics, California State University (SJSU), Cum Laude, 2010

Research Fields:

Primary fields: Health Economics, Entrepreneurial Economics, Public Choice

Secondary fields: Law and Economics, Environmental Economics

Academic Appointments:

Assistant Professor of Economics, Miller College of Business, Ball State University. (2015 to Present)

Advisory Board Member, College of Health and Human Services, George Mason University. (2013 to Present)

Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, George Mason University. (2013 to 2015)

Teaching Experience:

Industry Experience:

Publications:

Can Sticky Consumption Cause Business Cycles?

(2016) With James McClure (Review of Austrian Economics)

Sticky aggregate consumption is a demonstrable phenomenon in economies throughout the world, but to our knowledge it has not yet been incorporated into capital structure macroeconomics. Doing so suggests an explanation for business cycles. On the heels of a technological advance, sticky consumption facilitates increased savings and lower real interest rates. These lower rates lead to accelerating elongations in the capital structure. Even though such elongations facilitate more rapid economic growth, such structural changes are accompanied by increased risk and an increased likelihood of systematic entrepreneurial error. Exposure of such error causes the economy to contract.

Explaining the Timing of Tulipmania's Boom and Bust

(2017) With James McClure (Forthcoming at Financial History Review)

Framing Tulipmania in terms of sequestered capital—capital whose quantities, usages, and future yields are hidden from market participants—offers a richer and more straightforward explanation of this famous financial bubble than extant alternatives. Simply put, the underground planting of the tulip bulbs in 1636 blindfolded seventeenth century Dutch speculators regarding the planted quantities and their development and future yields. The price-boom began in mid-November of 1636, coinciding with the time of planting. The price-collapse occurred in the first week of February 1637, coinciding with the time of bulb sprouting—signaling bulb quantities, development, and future yields. Also consistent with our explanation is the initial price-collapse location, in the Dutch city of Haarlem, where temperature and geography favored early sprouting and sprout-visibility.

Research Papers Under Review:

Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: A Misdiagnosis

(2017) With David Henderson (Under Review at the Journal of Risk and Insurance)

A common misunderstanding of moral hazard emerges from an inaccurate definition of health-care insurance. What we call health insurance is actually a bundle of two services — insurance for catastrophic care and subsidies for routine care. The insurance portion covers insurable medical events and the subsidized portion provides additional compensation to employees and taxpayer-funded coverage for the poor and elderly. This bundling approach has made it difficult to draw a bright line between what is medical insurance and what is merely a tax-free subsidy of the cost of routine care. As a result, many economists have chosen to include the over-consumption of routine care in the moral hazard bundle instead of attributing the behavior to the subsidy. This approach leads to confusing discussions of public policy.

The Impact of New-Product R&D on the Circular Flow

(2017) With James McClure (Under Review at the Southern Economic Journal)

Closed-system circular flow models are found in nearly all principles of economics textbooks. Because these circular flow models account for neither new-product R&D, nor the attendant leakages and injections, students miss prime opportunities to understand: 1) the distinction between new-product and process R&D; 2) the circular flow leakages and injections attending new-product R&D; and 3) Schumpeterian “creative destruction” and “swarming.” To exploit these opportunities, we present an open-system circular flow model that also provides students with a price theoretic explanation of the overshooting (duplicative) development that so often accompanies business cycles.

New-Product R&D: The Earliest Stage of the Structure of Capital

(2017) With James McClure (Under Review at the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics)

New product R&D precedes all other stages of production; it is itself a three-stage process. It begins with idea prospecting that leads to working prototypes. Next, comes productization—the conversion of working prototypes into products that can be manufactured with a reasonable prospect of being profitable. Finally, firms produce pre-launch inventories. This process often involves high-risk, not only due to the large amounts of time and capital investment, but also because the secrecy maintained across lateral competitors stifles market signals that ordinarily foster economic efficiency. Reconsideration of the Austrian theory of the business cycle with these characteristics of new-product R&D in mind leads to additional insights about: 1) the capital consumption that occurs during the cycle; and 2) the timing of the bust that follows a boom inspired by excessive credit expansion.

Hayek's Price Fan Simile: Roundaboutness, the Proliferation of Prices, and the Economy of Knowledge

(2017) With James McClure (Under Review at History of Political Economy)

Friedrich Hayek (1931), in Prices and Production, illustrated the price adjustments in his stages of production theory with a “simile” of a “price fan.” Hayek never mentioned the price fan simile again, nor have we discovered in the literature of economics use of it in other analyses of the stages of production. Here we argue that the price fan simile deserves further consideration as a way to clarify the interrelationship between the roundaboutness of production and the economy of knowledge that Hayek (1945) argues is the “most significant fact” about the price system. Additionally, our expansion of Hayek’s simile suggests a more satisfactory resolution to the Knight/Hayek controversy that took place in the 1930s — it clearly illustrates that roundaboutness and the economy of knowledge (resulting proliferating prices) are fundamental to the theory of capital.

Working Papers:

A Theory of the Multi-Tenant Firm

Modern multi-tenant firms have as their origin the ancient bazaars of the Middle East and include today’s airports, physical and virtual shopping malls, cable television providers, port terminals, trade-shows, sports leagues, and food franchises. The multi-tenant firm operates as a “firm of firms” that benefits from the rents and often a share of the revenues generated by the individual tenant firms. Multi-tenant firms share seven combined characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of business and are each essential to the efficiency of operations. This paper attempts to look inside this institutional form with an eye to understanding why they emerge, how they are structured, and what efficiency they are uniquely able to deliver.

Dial 911 For Murder: The Impact of 9-1-1 on Homicides

(2016) With Thomas Stratmann

Several theories have been offered to explain the recent declines in the lethality and homicide rates in the United States. We hypothesize that technological innovations, which improved information transmission and shortened the response time between an aggravated assault incident and treatment, reduced the cost of saving lives and caused much of the decline in lethality and homicide rates in recent decades. Using difference-in-differences and regression-discontinuity designs, we show that improvements in emergency services (9-1-1) caused significant decreases in lethality and homicide rates. Various placebo and falsification tests support these findings.

The Essential Fact of Capitalism: On the Divergence of Hayekian and Schumpeterian Thought

(2017) With James McClure

Beyond private ownership of the means of production, what is the most important, or essential, fact of capitalism? Friedrich A. Hayek thought it was the economy of knowledge with which the system operated, whereas for Joseph A. Schumpeter it was the process of creative destruction. To our knowledge, the explicit divergence of thought between these two Austrian-born economists on this fundamental question has gone unheralded in the vast literature devoted to them. In this paper we explore connections between this divergence and the divergent thoughts they had about business cycles, and, ultimately socialism.

Work in Process:

Toward a Theory of Sequestered Capital: Entrepreneurial Swarming, Error, and Creative Destruction.

(2017) with James McClure

An Economic Theory of Conducible Goods. (2018)

Venture Roulette: Empirical Predictions of Entrepreneurial Performance. (2017)

Parliamentary Investments in Political Firms. (2017)

Surviving Weather: Efficient Allocation of Emergency Services in Periods of Cold and Precipitation.

(2017) with Thomas Stratmann

Textbook in Process:

The Entrepreneur and the Economy: Principles of Entrepreneurial Economics. (2017)

Conference Presentations:

Public Choice Society Conference – R&D is not a Public Good: So Why Subsidize it?. (March 2017)

Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) Betting on the Bulbs: Tulipmania, a Historical Case of Sequestered Capital (2017)

Southern Economic Association - Annual Meeting, Dial 911 for Murder: The Impact of Emergency Services on Homicide Rates (2016)

National Emergency Number Association – National Critical Issues Forum, Ongoing Research on the Impact of 911 on Survival Rates. (October 2016)

50th Anniversary Public Choice Society Conference – Moral Hazard in Health Insurance—a Misdiagnosis. (March 2016)

National Emergency Number Association – Annual Meeting – Save Time, Save Lives: The Impact of 9-1-1 on Homicides. (June 2016)

Southern Economic Association - Annual Meeting, "An Historical Case Study of Business Cycles: Stocks, Tulips, and Houses" (2014)

Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) "The Parliamentary Process of Investment in Political Firms" (2014)

Professional Presentations:

Ball State University - Research Colloquium. Betting on the Bulbs: Tulipmania (March 2017)

Ball State University - Panhellenic Annual Conference. The Last Lecture. (February 2017)

Ball State University - Research Colloquium. Declines in the Lethality of U.S. Aggravated Assaults (January 2016)

American University - Economic Seminar. Dial 9-1-1 for Murder: The Impact of 9-1-1 on Homicides (February 2015)

Book Reviews:

2012, "A Priceless Review", A book review of Priceless, a book by John Goodman.

2012,. "All the Incentives Are Here", A book review of the Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera 2010 book, All the Devils Are Here.

2010, "A Risky Theory of Business Cycles", A review of Risk and Business Cycles, a book by Tyler Cowen.

Other Publications:

2008, "Channels 2.0: Delivering and Deploying On Demand Solutions", Faqtors Consulting.

1984, "Method and apparatus for providing security for computer software", United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Association Memberships:

American Economic Association (AEA), Current

Southern Economic Association (SEA), Current

Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE), Current

American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon), Current

Omicron Delta Epsilon (Economics Honor Society) (ODE), Member and Faculty Advisor

Association of Economic History (AEH), Current

References: