Biographical Information

I graduated and accepted a position with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, our nation's central bank. I am now an Economist for the Payment Systems Studies section of the division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems. The following biography was written prior to accepting that position. (Just in case you might have mistakenly thought otherwise, rest assured that the opinions expressed on this web site are the opinions of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the Federal Reserve System.)

In addition to completing my PhD dissertation this Fall, I am conducting research for a hedge fund in Beverly Hills, and teaching a course for UCLA Extension. I have been a graduate student at the Department of Economics at UCLA for the past 6 years. As such, I have been engaged in activities related to PhD studies and education, such as research, teaching assistance, and undergraduate counseling. In addition to these activities, I have also applied my computer programming skills to related peripheral activities.

As far as research goes, I am co-author of a recently published paper (Nov. 1997) in the Journal of Productivity Analysis called "Estimating Technological Change Using a Stochastic Frontier Production Function Framework: Evidence From U. S. Firm-Level Data." I have been working on several research projects in addition to the paper. One, my PhD. thesis, studies vintage portfolio effects in New York Stock Exchange returns over the past 75 years. In another project, I study the effect of trading frequency on the well-known U-shape in intra-day return volatility on the stock market. In a 3rd, I study the distribution of technological innovation of Compustat firms within and across industries to better assess the sources of economic growth.

I am also working on or have completed several web-based educational and research projects, including the provision of interactive learning tools for Econ 1, 11, 40, 143, and 146 using cgi and java technology. The online interactive self-grading quizzes have been around the longest and have seen the most use in Prof. Cameron's 143 course. I have also helped several economics professors and UCLA's College of Letters and Science undergraduate counseling division to develop and organize "web sites" in various ways. I am giving a presentation on the efforts of the Dept. of Economics to implement the Chancellor's Instructional Enhancement Initiative at the 1999 American Economic Association meeting in New York.

Prior to my return to college in 1990, I worked in food service management and financial accounting positions. As an undergraduate at UCLA, I worked as a computer programmer and specialist for the UCLA Business and Finance, developing several productivity-enhancing applications, at least one of which is still in use by the university today. (It produces and tracks the bar code with a picture of Royce Hall you may occasionally notice on various pieces of relatively expensive pieces of equipment, like computers and nuclear particle accelerators.)

In any case, the past 8 years have been focused on developing my understanding of economics, and the communication of this knowledge to others. I have a personal committment to myself to maintain a high level of understanding of current events in general, and of high technology industry in particular. In addition, I try to maintain a grasp on the state of intellectual thought in a broad range of scientific, social (esp. business and politics), and cultural fields, in addition to keeping abreast of my own field of economics.

I have also spent 6 contiguous weeks in the High Sierra, hiking from upper Lake Tahoe, to lower Yosemite, covering some 350 miles of rough terrain, and have presented a narrated slide show of the adventure to large audiences, such as an event for REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated), the largest company organized as a co-operative in the U. S.

More Details

I have been involved at UCLA as an undergraduate and graduate student, and as an employee, since the Spring of 1990. My employment career after arriving in Los Angeles began with a job as a programmer for the UCLA Business and Finance Department (B&F), which handles much of the university administrative business, such as financial accounting, payroll, grant processing, supplies, equipment management and the like. While I had some experience with programming (I had taken a BASIC programming course at American River College) I learned much of what I know on the job, or after hours at home. While at B&F, I wrote several database applications, some of which are still in use by the university today.

Once I became a graduate student, my focus turned to more academic pursuits. Even so, my interest in computer programming was never far from my mind For example, in the Summer following the first year Economics sequence, when I should have been studying for the Comprehensive Examinations, I spent many hours teaching myself to program in C++. This resulted in the production of a demonstration program to assist financial managers to forecast exchange rates. Unfortunately, it was designed to run under DOS, now obsolete, so the gain from writing this program has really only realized a return from its incremental contribution to my human capital!

As a Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant, and Counseling Assistant, I have endeavored to enhance the educational experience by developing software to facilitate the learning process. Some examples of what I have accomplished in this regard include the framework for the self grading quizzes used in Professor Cameron's Economics 143 course, the two linear program solvers available at this web site, and the Java applets which are also available here. As a Counseling Assistant, I started the Catalist web page and email list, now available from MyUCLA, and wrote the Perl code that maintains the EconAlert email list, used by the UCLA Department of Economics undergraduate counselor.

I am currently working to complete my Ph.D. in Economics and file my dissertation by Summer or Fall of 1998. I plan to participate in the Economics job market which meets at the AEA meetings in New York, January 1999. I will also be presenting a paper on Computer Assisted Instruction at the meetings.



Scary, isn't it...