Faculty Research

Scott Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Economics; Graduate Program Director in Economics

I am interested in the economics of crime and vice.  In two papers, I show that rising male imprisonment causes an imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the mating market, and via this mechanism, causes Black men with “tastes” for  promiscuity to engage in riskier sexual relations.  I also show that the growth in the prison population tended to increase the number of gonorrhea cases as a result of the increasing concurrency among non-imprisoned men.  More recently, I’ve shifted my interested towards understanding what effect both rising illicit drug use and rising prison populations has had on child welfare outcomes.  In one paper with Greg Rafert, we show that rising meth usage caused a significant increase in foster care caseloads.  Using the AFCARS data, we find that the mechanisms linking meth use to foster care were because of increased parental neglect, parental drug abuse and parental incarceration.  We show that meth use, while it does increase foster care caseloads, does not cause an increase in foster care caseloads due to sexual or physical abuse.  Future projects will continue to investigate the impact of prisons and drug use on child and adult outcomes.  My areas of interest are broad, but are related to one of a few themes:  drug abuse, prison growth, sex and STD health outcomes, and crime.

Steven L. Green, Professor of Economics and Statistics

My background is in money/macro, but in recent years my research interests have become focused on applied econometric modeling. I am currently working on an econometric model (100+ equations) of Baylor finances and on a project exploring the relationship between the salaries earned by university faculty members and the US News and World Report rankings of their employers.

Earl L. Grinols, Distinguished Professor of Economics

I am currently engaged in writing my health care book detailing the "Baylor-Swiss-Pauly-Henderson-Grinols" framework. There are related derivative issues that need to be researched. How to replace pharmaceutical patents with a more efficient modern system is one example. Another remaining hurdle has to do with responses to provider market power. As always, I have several other research projects underway in various stages, currently: visitors and crime (graduate student Melissa Staha is working on this with me), economic integration (joint with Giovanni Facchini), and immigration policy.

James W. Henderson, Ben Williams Professor of Economics

My research is primarily focused on health care issues. I am currently finishing several research projects funded by the Agency for Health Care Policy Research on the economic impact of state-level health insurance regulations. I am on a three-year revision cycle for my book, Health Economics & Policy, 4th edition (Thomson/SouthWestern) and am also working on a health care reform monograph with Earl Grinols. Additional projects include a proposed replacement strategy for pharmaceutical patents and a study on the effects of immigration status on health insurance coverage. Longer term goals include an examination of the impact of physician-owned specialty hospitals on the ability to provide services to the uninsured.

Charles M. North, Associate Professor of Economics

My research has focused in recent years on the economics of religion and on law and economics. In the economics of religion, I have examined the effects that state religion and state regulation of religion have on religious attendance and religious institutions. Also, I have underway several projects that consider possible links between religion and economic growth. In the area of law and economics, I have written several papers on the labor market effects of the employment-at-will doctrine. I am currently working on a project examining the connection between lawyers, judges, and mold insurance prices in Texas.

David VanHoose, Herman W. Lay Professor of Private Enterprise

David VanHoose's research interests are in domestic and international macroeconomics, monetary economics, and banking. Some of his current research, conducted with Baylor colleague Carl Gwin, examines macroeconomic and industry-level evidence regarding the sticky-price assumption utilized by many modern new Keynesian theories. In another line of research, Professor VanHoose has been investigating factors influencing the interrelationship among openness, sacrifice ratios, and inflation, such as the degree of central bank independence, nominal wage stickiness and centralization, and income-tax progressivity. His recent banking research has explored the effects of capital requirements on the monetary policy transmission mechanism, aggregate loan quality, and the distribution of equity in the banking system. During the past two years, Professor VanHoose has authored or co-authored articles published or accepted in research outlets that include the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of International Money and Finance, Open Economies Review, the Journal of Macroeconomics, the European Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Banking and Finance.