Gary Hoover (economist) facts for kids

Gary A. Hoover (born in August 1968) is an American economics professor. He is currently the director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. Before this, he was a professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Oklahoma. He was the first African American hired in that department.

In 1998, he joined the University of Alabama's economics department. He was also the first African American hired there for a permanent teaching position. He became a full professor in 2010. In 2017, he started and became the main editor of the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy. Professor Hoover writes a lot about race and fairness in the United States. He is also a top expert on cheating and other bad behavior in the economics field.

Early Life and Education

Gary Hoover grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After high school, he joined the Army in 1986. He used money from the G.I. Bill to pay for his college education.

He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He earned his first degree in economics in 1993. Later, he received his master's and PhD degrees in economics from Washington University in St. Louis. He finished his PhD in 1998.

Professor Hoover's Career

Professor Hoover taught at the University of Alabama from 1998 to 2014. He was a special faculty member there for many years. In 2015, he became the head of the Economics Department at the University of Oklahoma.

He also helped start the Journal of Economics, Race and Policy. This journal focuses on how economics, race, and government rules connect. From 2018 to 2020, he was a vice president for the Southern Economic Association. Since 2013, he has helped lead a group that supports minority economists. This group is called the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession.

Research on Economic Fairness

Professor Hoover's early research looked at how local governments work. He studied things like how cities gave out business licenses. He also looked at how cities saved money by hiring private companies for trash removal. He continued this type of research throughout his career.

He also studied how government rules affect poverty. He explored if economic growth always helps reduce poverty. His findings suggested it helped people near the poverty line, but less so for those further away. This led him to study how race affects poverty and income differences.

Income Differences and Race

Professor Hoover realized that to understand poverty, he needed to study the entire income distribution. This means looking at how income is shared among everyone. He also included more discussions about race and ethnicity.

He has written about how income differences vary for immigrant men and women. He also studied how government programs affect income differences for different racial and ethnic groups. His research showed that economic freedom did not help everyone equally. It helped non-Black citizens more, while Black incomes were not much affected.

Research on Ethics in Economics

In 2004, Professor Hoover wrote about how someone copied his work without giving him credit. This is called plagiarism. He found that the editor of the journal where he sent his work did not want to punish the person who plagiarized.

Because of this, he surveyed other journal editors. He wanted to see how they felt about plagiarism. He was surprised by their answers. This made him decide to study cheating and bad behavior in the economics field. He is now a top expert on this topic. He often gives talks to other economics departments about it. He also helps on a board that deals with plagiarism for economic research papers.

Selected Publications

Here are some of Professor Hoover's important research papers:

• Enders, Walter, Gary A. Hoover, and Todd Sandler. "The changing nonlinear relationship between income and terrorism." Journal of Conflict Resolution 60, no. 2 (2016): 195-225.
• Compton, Ryan A., Daniel C. Giedeman, and Gary A. Hoover. "Panel evidence on economic freedom and growth in the United States." European Journal of Political Economy 27, no. 3 (2011): 423-435.
• Enders, Walter, and Gary A. Hoover. "The Nonlinear Relationship Between Terrorism and Poverty." American Economic Review 102, no. 3 (2012): 267-72
• Hoover, Gary A., and Paul Pecorino. "The political determinants of federal expenditure at the state level." Public Choice 123, no. 1-2 (2005): 95-113.
• Hoover, Gary A. "Whose line is it? Plagiarism in economics." Journal of Economic Literature 42, no. 2 (2004): 487-493.

Promoting Diversity in Economics

Since 2013, Professor Hoover has helped lead the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP). This group works to make the economics field more diverse.

The CSMGEP has a website that lists job candidates from minority groups. They also publish a yearly newsletter called the Minority Report. The group offers programs to help more Black students join the economics profession. These include a Summer Training Program and a Mentoring Program.

Even with these efforts, the number of Black students earning PhDs in economics is still low. It usually stays around 2-3% each year. Professor Hoover has spoken and written a lot about the challenges faced by African Americans in economics. In 2020, he and his co-chair, Ebonya Washington, encouraged the American Economic Association to start five new programs for diversity. These programs include awards and grants to help make economics more welcoming to everyone.