• Prior to joining Trinity University, he held the Rod and Hope Brim Eminent Scholar Chair in Economics, and was Director of the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State University. Earlier, he served as an assistant and associate professor of economics at Miami University.

    Economists since Adam Smith have argued that competitive forces should tend to equalize wages across similar workers in similar jobs. His research has been concentrated on examining factors that cause deviations from wage equalization. In particular, he has focused on the role of trade unions, pensions, wage discrimination, industry deregulation, and the minimum wage.

    He has written over 60 journal articles and book chapters. He is a co-author of the undergraduate textbooks Economics: Private and Public Choice and Contemporary Labor Economics. He also co-authored the book Pensions and Productivity. With Barry Hirsch, he provides union data to researchers and the public through the web site www.unionstats.com.

    Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University 

    B.S., Pennsylvania State University

    • “The Affordable Care Act and the Growth of Involuntary Part-Time Employment,” with William Even, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, August, 2019.
    • “Where Does the Minimum Wage Bite Hardest in California?” with William Even, Journal of Labor Research, March, 2019.
    • Lives of the Laureates, Seventh Edition, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, forthcoming, with Roger Spencer. Also co-author on 6th edition.
    • Union Membership and Earnings Data Book: Compilations from the Current Population Survey (2018 Edition), Bureau of National Affairs, Washington, D.C., with Barry Hirsch. Co-author on 1994 to 2017 editions as well.
    • Economics: Private and Public Choice, 16th edition, Southwestern: Cincinnati, Ohio, 2018, with James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, and Russell Sobel. Co-author on 10th to 15th editions as well.
    • Contemporary Labor Economics, 11th edition, McGraw-Hill: New York, N.Y., 2017, with Campbell McConnell and Stanley Brue. Co-author on 5th to 10th editions as well.
    • "Nonprofit Wages: Theory and Evidence," with Barry T. Hirsch and Anne E. Preston, Handbook of Research on Nonprofit Economics and Management, 2018, Edward Elgar, Edited by Bruce A. Seaman and Dennis R. Young, 2nd edition.
    • "What Do Unions Do to Pension Performance?" Economic Inquiry, July 2014, pp. 1173-1189, with William Even.
    • Deferred Compensation vs. Efficiency Wages: An Experimental Test of Effort Provision and Self-Selection," Journal of Business and Economic Organization, June 2014, pp. 90-107, with Tim Salmon and Kislaya Prasad.
    • "The Effect of the Tipped Minimum Wage on Employees in the U.S. Restaurant Industry," Southern Economic Journal, January 2014, pp. 633-655, with William Even.
    • “Is Bigger Still Better?: The Decline of the Wage Premium at Large Firms,” Southern Economic Journal, April 2012, pp. 1181-1201, with William Even.
    • "Growth of Participant Direction in Defined Contribution Plans," April 2010, pp. 190-208, Industrial Relations, with William Even.
    • "Managing Risk Caused by Pension Investments in Company Stock,"National Tax Journal, September 2009, pp. 439-453, with William Even.
    • Principles of Microeconomics 
    • Labor Economics and Labor Relations 
    • Seminar Economics Issues 
    • Money and Banking