Inforum Ph.D. Graduates

San Sampattavanija

San completed his dissertation in January, 2008. His work, entitled Generating Up-To-Date Starting Values for Detailed Forecasting Models, improves the ability of applied economists to compile up-to-date economic data. San returned to his home in Thailand in February, 2008 with plans to teach.

Xiaohan Hu

Xiaohan completed her dissertation in the Department of Economics in 2007. Xiahan became an honorary member of Inforum in 2004 while working with Dr. Mahlon Straszheim to develop and maintain a model of Maryland using Inforum software and techniques.

Ronald Horst - 2006: The Economics of Nuclear Power

Ron completed his dissertation, The Economics of Nuclear Power, in the fall of 2006. The work provides a theoretical framework for balancing safety and other concerns and presents an empirical model of nuclear plant operations. Upon graduation, he accepted a full-time position at Inforum.

Li Ding - 2006: United States Households Consumption, A Comprehensive Analysis

Li completed his thesis: United States Households Consumption, A Comprehensive Analysis in the fall of 2006. He graduated in December of 2006.

Somprawin Manprasert - 2004

Somprawin completed his thesis: A Thai Interindustry Dynamic Model With Optimization in May, 2004. He returned to Thailand and now is working at Chulalongkorn University. He recently presented his dissertation work at Inforum World Conference XII.

Dan Wilson

Dan completed his thesis: Capital-Embodied Technological Change: Measurement and Productivity Effects in May 2001. In his thesis, he developed a way to measure the speed of quality improvement in new capital goods, and constructed an alternative measure of capital stock by industry using this parameter. The capital stocks were then used in a model which successfully relates capital investment by industry to labor productivity. Dan now works at the San Franciso Federal Reserve Bank.

Qing Wang

Qing Wang finished Trade Flows and Trade Protection: A Multi-Country and Multi-Sectoral Investigation, in Fall, 2000. In his thesis, he examined the effects of tariff and non-tariff barriers by commodity by country on imports. This work built upon the Bilateral Trade Model of Qiang Ma, and a trade protection database developed by Qing, based on United Nations and other data. Qing recently left the IMF to work with Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong.

Qisheng Yu

Qisheng graduated in December, 1999 after successfully defending his thesis in November. The title of his thesis is Mudan: A China Model for Multisectoral Development Analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only complete interindustry model of China, and its development continues at Inforum. Qisheng is now working for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Chicago.

Tim Dowd

Tim's thesis is entitled Labor Supply, Fertility and the Economy. Tim is now working at the Joint Tax Committee. His thesis was completed in Spring, 1998.

Qiang Ma

Qiang graduated in Spring, 1996, and his thesis was A Multisectoral Bilateral World Trade Model. Several of Qiang's working papers that describe the development of that model are available in our working papers. Qiang is working for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Washington, D.C.

Jeffry Janoska

Jeffry's thesis was Modeling Personal Consumption and Government Transfers in a Long-Run Macroeconometric Forecasting Model, and was completed in 1996. Jeffry also has several papers related to his thesis in our working papers. He is now working at the American Council for Life Insurance.

Robert Shackleton

Bob developed our model of Great Britain. His thesis, An Input-Output Forecasting Model of the British Economy, was completed in 1992. Bob currently works at the Congressional Budget Office.

Jeffrey Werling

Jeff worked in Spain for several years with Fundacion Tomillo, and developed their model, called MIDE. His thesis was completed in 1992, and was entitled: MIDE: A Macroeconomic Multisectoral Model of the Spanish Economy. Jeffrey currently works for Inforum.

Lorraine Monaco

Lorraine essentially developed and tested what is currently the price-income side of the LIFT model. She completed her thesis in 1991, The Price-Income Side of an Interindustry Model: Development and Simulations. Lorraine is the happy mother of two children, Michael and Mary.

Chang-yu I. Chao

Chang-yu updated and extended Paul Devine's earlier work on the integration of the cross-sectional and time-series analysis of personal consumption. Her thesis, completed in 1991, was entitled A Cross-Sectional and Time-Series Analysis of Household Consumption and a Forecast of Personal Consumption Expenditures.

Douglas Meade

Doug graduated in May, 1990. His thesis was entitled Investment in a Macroeconometric Interindustry Model. In it, he developed several alternative equipment investment forecasting models, and tested their relative predictive power.

Stephen Pollock

Steve built the detailed personal income tax model, in his thesis Income Taxes in a Long-Term Macroeconometric Forecasting Model, which was completed in December 1986. Steve is at KPMG Peat Marwick in the Colorado office.

Matthew Hyle

Matt built the price-income side for the first version of the LIFT model. This work is described in his thesis An Interindustry Forecasting Model for Prices and Factor Incomes for the U.S., completed in 1985.

Ralph Monaco

Ralph was one of the primary architects of the LIFT model, and focused on financial and macro behavior. He completed his thesis in 1984, entitled Interindustry and Macroeconomic Effects of Monetary Policy: A Long-Term Modeling Perspective. Ralph is currently at the Treasury Department.

David Robison

David's thesis consisted of three studies. The first investigated the question of how industrial pollution abatement costs are distributed across income classes. The second looked at the long-run profitability of building a plant to produce ethanol from corn. The final study was a project to build a detailed input-output model of 425 sectors. The thesis, entitled Three Applications of Input-Output Modeling, was completed in December 1983. David is now a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

Paul Devine

Paul developed and refined Almon's model of personal consumption, in a thesis entitled Forecasting Personal Consumption Expenditures from Cross-Section and Time-Series Data, completed in 1983.

Anthony Barbera

Tony was the first to explore the modeling of interrelated factor demands within the LIFT model. His thesis, A Study of the Determinants of Factor Demand by Industry, was completed in 1982. Tony is a partner at KPMG Peat Marwick.

Peter Taylor

Peter used the Generalized Leontief cost function to estimate coefficient change in response to price, in the energy and transportation industries. His thesis, Estimating Price Effects on Input-Output Coefficients, was completed in 1981. Peter worked for many years on Capitol Hill and is now retired.

Patrick Henaff

Patrick worked with Clopper and Doug Nyhus at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in the late 1970s, and then visited at Maryland for a year, to help begin the LIFT model of the U.S. His master's thesis was An Input-Output Model of the French Economy, completed in 1980.

David Belzer

David was the first to construct a closed model of incomes and prices, in his thesis: An Integration of Prices, Wages and Income Flows in an Input-Output Model of the United States. This thesis was completed in 1978, before work on the LIFT model was begun. Therefore, the value added equations bridged to the 200-sector classification used in the older Inforum model. David has worked for Batelle-Northwest since leaving Inforum in the late 1970s.

David Gilmartin

In his thesis, David explored a markup model of price forecasting, and also investigated price models using quarterly data. The thesis was entitled Forecasting Prices in an Input-Output Framework, and was completed in 1976.

Young Sun Lee

Although he hails from South Korea, Young Sun constructed the first Inforum model of the Japanese economy. Like Reimbold before him, he subjected his model to rigorous simulation testing. His thesis was entitled An Input-Output Forecasting Model of the Japanese Economy, and was completed in 1976. After returning to Korea, Young Sun taught at Yonsei University for twenty-five years. Young Sun became the President of Hallym University in Chuncheon, South Korea in April of 2008.

Douglas Nyhus

Doug described in his thesis a world trade model which would be linked by bilateral trade flows and commodity prices by country. Such a model was not actually developed until the 1990s, but Doug's thesis helped provide the motivation for the development of the Inforum International System. The thesis, The Trade Model of a Dynamic World Input-Output Forecasting System was completed in 1975. Doug is still with Inforum.

Thomas Reimbold

Thomas was one of the architects of the Inforum 185-sector model that was a predecessor to LIFT. In this thesis, Simulation with a Dynamic Interindustry Forecasting Model, he describes the development of the stochastic equations in this model, and then analyzes the behavior of the model in simulation tests. His thesis was completed in 1974.