Session 6: Contributed Papers Session
Winners of the ninth annual Mennis competition will present their papers.
Presentations
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Speakers
Dan Hamilton
Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, California Lutheran Univesity
Dan Hamilton obtained a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from U.C. Davis in 1990 and a Ph.D. in Economics from U.C. Santa Barbara in 2002. From 1995 to 2004, Dan taught a variety of courses in macroeconomic theory, econometrics, and business forecasting at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
He began working with Economic Forecast models in 1997 with the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA Group). For three years with the WEFA Group, (now known as Global Insight), Hamilton produced forecasts and generated alternate scenarios. In 2000, Dan joined the UCSB Economic Forecast Project where he built and maintained a variety of forecast models in Eviews, including models of the United States, California, and Oregon.
In June 2009, Dan Hamilton took part in forming a new Economic Forecast center at California Lutheran University (CLU). This is the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at CLU, or CERF. They also formed a new M.S. in Economics program that will focus on teaching the applied tools for Economic Forecasting.
Rani Isaac
State Library, California Research Bureau
Rani (pronounced Ronnie) has been publishing a series of reports called California Foreclosure Watch for the California State Legislature’s Assembly Banking & Finance Committee. In theses reports, she has provided macroeconomic analysis on the housing and banking crisis. In addition, she has made several formal presentations about how job losses must end and home prices must stabilize for the cycle to bottom out.
Rani started working for the State of California in October of 2005 as an economist and researcher. Prior to coming to CA, she worked for the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) in Washington DC. She contributed to revenues of $300,000 by writing and editing articles for a subscription-based NAHB publication Housing Economics Online and was instrumental in the conversion from three separate paper journals to web-based products.
She has also served in many levels of government:
· as demographer/economist for a COG (Council of Governments)
· as a consultant and economist for two branches of the federal government that were conducting socioeconomic analysis as required in decennial master plans for forests and Bureau of Land Management public land.
· as the top economist for the Executive Branch for the State of Colorado, where she worked five years with employment, population, income and revenue forecasts, as well as legislation.
· as a researcher and economist for California’s Franchise Tax Board.
Rani started her career in the private sector working in economics for five years at McGraw-Hill in its New York City Headquarters, working as a forecaster for two construction publications. She worked with economists at DRI (now Global Insights) to produce construction forecasts.
She holds a Master of International Management (International MBA) degree from the University of Denver.
She has been a member of the National Association for Business Economics since 1993 and was President of the Sacramento chapter in 2008. She served two years as an officer in the Sacramento Economics Roundtable (SERT) and three years as Treasurer and Vice President of the Denver chapter.
Kirk Lesh
Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, California Lutheran Univesity
Kirk M. Lesh, M.B.A., is a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) at California Lutheran University. In addition to his work at CERF, Mr. Lesh is finishing his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mr. Lesh earned his M.B.A. from the University of California, Irvine in 2000 and holds undergraduate degrees in Finance and Economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
At CLU Mr. Lesh spends his time consulting for Santa Barbara County and NAI Capital, Inc. In the fall he will begin teaching in the new M.S. Economics program. Mr. Lesh also teaches several undergraduate classes at CLU.
Prior to his work at CLU Mr. Lesh was the Real Estate Economist at the Economic Forecast Project at UCSB where he prepared and presented annual real estate forecasts for several communities in Central California. Additionally, Mr. Lesh served as a consultant on several large, community orientated projects.
His work at CLU and UCSB has given Mr. Lesh the opportunity to speak at numerous seminars throughout California. He often quoted in local newspapers and has been the keynote speaker at several events.
Before he entered the Ph.D program Mr. Lesh worked as a Manager of Finance for several companies in Orange County. In these various roles Mr. Lesh helped integrate two billion dollar companies, created a financial reporting system and secured a second public offering.
Gad Levanon
The Conference Board
James A. Wilcox
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
James A. Wilcox is the Lowrey Professor of Financial Institutions at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jim has published widely on banking and credit unions, on housing and mortgage markets, on monetary policy, and on interest rates. His articles have been published the top academic economics and finance journals.
Jim teaches courses on macroeconomics, on financial markets and institutions, and on risk management at financial institutions. Jim has won several awards at Berkeley for his teaching. He has also served as Chair of the Finance Group at the Haas School.
From 1999-2001, Jim was the Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, DC. Previously, he had served in Washington as the senior economist for monetary policy and macroeconomics for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under the first President Bush and as an economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and is a Fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and the Filene Research Institute. Jim received his Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University.
Jim’s homepage provides more information and access to some of his publications.