Matthew Drennan

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Matthew Drennan has been a Visiting Professor in the department since 2004.   He is an Emeritus Professor, City and Regional Planning, Cornell University.

His recent book “Income Inequality: Why It Matters and Why Most Economists Didn’t Notice” was published by Yale University Press in November, 2015. It was reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, December 20, 2015.

His current research focuses on how minimum wage increases in big cities affect consumption expenditures of low-wage workers in the metropolitan area. Most of his past work has been in urban and regional economics. In the “Encyclopedia of New York City” he wrote the history of the city’s economy from colonial times to the present.

Articles:

“Do Agglomeration Economies Decay over Short Distances? Are They Stable in the Face of Shocks? Evidence From Manhattan,” International Journal of Urban Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2018

“Does Public Transit Use Enhance the Economic Efficiency of Urban Areas?” with Charles M. Brecher, Journal of Transport and Land Use, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2012.

“Measuring Urban Agglomeration Economies with Office Rents,” with Hugh Kelly, Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2011.

“Falling Behind: California’s Interior Metropolitan Areas,” with Michael Manville,Berkeley Planning Journal, Vol. 21, 2008.

“Economics: Diminishing Marginal Utility” Challenge, September-October, 2006

“Possible Sources of Wage Divergence among Metropolitan Areas of the United States,” Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 9, 2005.

“Unit Root Tests of Sigma Income Convergence Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” with Jose Lobo and Deborah Strumsky, Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 4, No. 5, 2004.

“Transition and Renewal; The Emergence of a Diverse Upstate Economy,”with Rolf Pendall and Susan Christopherson. Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, the Brookings Institution, January, 2004.

“The Economic Benefits of Public Investment in Transportation: A Review of Recent Literature,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2003.

“Sectoral Shares, Specialization, and Metropolitan Wages in the United States, 1969-1996,” with Shannon Larsen, Jose Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Wahyu Utomo. Urban Studies, Vol. 39, June, 2002.

Book Chapters:

“What’s Wrong With Los Angeles, and What Could Fix It?” California Policy Options, Daniel J.B. Mitchell, ed., UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, 2017.

“Economy,” The encyclopedia of New York City, 2nd Edition, Ed. Kenneth T. Jackson, New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2010.

“The Economic Cost of Disasters- Permanent or Ephemeral?” in Economic Costs and Consequences of Terrorism, Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson, eds, Edward Elgar, 2007.

Paul Ong

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Professor Ong has done research on the labor market status of minorities and immigrants, displaced high-tech workers, work and spatial/transportation mismatch, and environmental justice. He is currently engaged in several projects, including an analysis of the relationship between sustainability and equity, the racial wealth gap, and the role of urban structures on the reproduction of inequality.

Previous research projects have included studies of the impact of defense cuts on California’s once-dominant aerospace industry, the impact of immigration on the employment status of young African Americans, and the influence of car ownership and subsidized housing on welfare usage.

Dr. Ong is the Director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and editor of AAPI Nexus, and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and to the California Department of Social Services and the state Department of Employment Development, as well as the Wellness Foundation and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

He received a master’s in urban planning from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Economics, University of California, Berkeley. Along with his quantitative research, his professional practice includes teaching and applying visual forms of communication.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Set-Aside Contracting in S.B.A.’s 8(A) Program
Paul Ong, Review of Black Political Economy Vol 28, No. 3, Winter 2001, pp. 59-71.

Car Ownership and Welfare-to-Work
Paul M. Ong, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 21, No. 2, Spring 2002, pp. 255-268.

Impacts of Affirmative Action: Policies and Consequences in California
Paul Ong, editor,  Alta Mira Press, 1999.

The State of Asian Pacific America: Transforming Race Relations
Paul M. Ong, editor, Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute, LEAP and UCLA AASC, Los Angeles, CA, 2000.

The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring
Paul Ong, Edna Bonacich, and Lucie Cheng, editors, Temple University Press, 1994.

Michael Darby

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A recognized authority in macroeconomics and international finance, Michael Darby has achieved great success in both the academic and public sectors. From 1986 to 1992, Darby served in a number of senior positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, Member of the National Commission on Superconductivity, Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, and Administrator of the Economics and Statistics Administration. During his appointment, he received the Treasury’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award.

Dr. Darby is the widely-cited author of eleven books and monographs and numerous other professional publications. His most recent research has examined the growth of the biotechnology and nanotechnologies industry in the United States and in California, all science and engineering fields and high-technology industries in the world, and the role that universities and their faculties play in encouraging local economic development. Concurrently he holds appointments as chairman of The Dumbarton Group, research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. He is also director of UCLA’s John M. Olin Center for Public Policy, a position he has held since 1993. Previous to his Anderson School appointment in 1987, Darby held faculty positions or fellowships with UCLA’s department of economics, Stanford University, and Ohio State University. From his schooling to 1982, he also was vice president and director of Paragon Industries, Inc., a Dallas manufacturer of high-temperature kilns, furnaces, and refractories.

Thomas Rice

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Thomas Rice is Distinguished Research Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management and Public Policy.

Dr. Rice previously served as the UCLA campus as Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel from 2006 to 2011 and as Interim Dean of Public Health in 2012. As Vice Chancellor he was responsible for overseeing the promotions, recruitment, and retention of faculty at the campus level. He also served as Chair of the Department of Health Services from 1996 to 2000 and 2003 to 2004.

Dr. Rice is a health economist, having received his doctorate in the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1982. His areas of interest include health insurance, competition and regulation, comparative health systems, physicians’ economic behavior, and Medicare. He was lead author of a book about the U.S. health care system, for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, published in 2013 and updated in 2020. The fifth edition of his book, The Economics of Health Reconsidered, was published in 2023. His book, Health Insurance Systems: An International Comparison, was published in 2021. He served as editor of the journal Medical Care Research and Review from 1994 to 2000.

Dr. Rice was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. He was chair of the AcademyHealth Board of Directors in 2005-6, and previously he had been awarded its Article of the Year Award and its Young Investigator Award.