Mark Thoma
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Mark Allen Thoma (born December 15, 1956) is a
macroeconomist Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output/GDP ( ...
and
econometrician Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8â ...
and a professor of economics at the Department of Economics of the
University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...
. Thoma is best known as a regular columnist for ''
The Fiscal Times ''The Fiscal Times'' (TFT) is an English-language digital news, news analysis and opinion publication based in New York City and Washington, D.C. It was founded in 2010 with initial funding from businessman and investment banker Peter G. Peters ...
'' through his
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
"Economist's View", which
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American New Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He ...
called "the best place by far to keep up with the latest in economic discourse", and as an analyst at ''
CBS MoneyWatch ''CBS MoneyWatch'', a division of CBS News and a property of Paramount Global, is a personal finance website that provides advice on retirement, investing, money, work and real estate, originating from CBS's banner for its business news reporti ...
''. He is also a regular contributor to EconoMonitor.


Career and research

Thoma obtained his B.A. from
California State University, Chico California State University, Chico (Chico State) is a public university in Chico, California. It was founded in 1887 as one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing ...
in 1980, and his Ph.D. from
Washington State University Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest Land-grant uni ...
in 1985. After having been visiting professor at the Department of Economics of the
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
in 1986–87, he joined the faculty of the Department of Economics of the University of Oregon in 1987, where he was head of the department from 1995 to 2000 and became full professor in 2010. Thoma's research focuses on how money impacts the economy. Some of Thoma's earliest work deals with real economic activity as related to a number of variables. In a 1994 paper, he studies the asymmetry between the
supply of money In macroeconomics, money supply (or money stock) refers to the total volume of money held by the public at a particular point in time. There are several ways to define "money", but standard measures usually include currency in circulation (i ...
in an economy and the
distribution of income In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes ...
. He argues that the relationship between the supply of money and income is weakest when real economic activity is at a high, but correlates closely as economic activity declines. In another paper, he concludes that financial variables such as interest rates are not useful as a predictive measure of future economic activity. Thoma's more controversial work has dealt with the business cycle under different conditions in partisan politics. He first broached the topic in 1991 with an article called Partisan Effects in Economies with Variable Electoral Terms. He contends that in parliamentary governments—which call elections at their leisure—conservative parties are more likely to experience recessions near the end of their terms, while liberal administrations would be likely to experience periods of increasing growth. In a later article, Thoma expands on already existing academic literature which suggests surprise regime changes occur on a regular schedule, forming the basis of a political business cycle. He applies this logic to open economies in order to find that not only is there empirical support for the idea of a political business cycle, but there may yet be more implications for domestic indicators on a partisan basis.


References


External links


Web page for Mark Thoma
at the University of Oregon * *
Columnist page for Mark Thoma
at ''The Fiscal Times''
"Economist's View"
weblog
Mark Thoma's profile
at EconoMonitor * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thoma, Mark Allen Economists from California American macroeconomists Time series econometricians Washington State University alumni University of California, San Diego faculty University of Oregon faculty Living people 1956 births Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American economists