Global and Regional Economic Expertise

Dr. Evan Osborne, Professor of Economics, has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship from the US Department of State to teach Global Economics at Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan from September 2008 to January 2009. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at Osaka University in Japan. At WSU, he teaches Analysis of the Global Economy in the MBA program. He recently authored ― “The Determinants of Growth at Different Stages of Development”, in Contemporary Economic Policy 24(4), 2006, as well as a new book, The Rise of the Anti-Corporate Movement, in 2007.

Dr. Sirisha Naidu, Assistant Professor of Economics, joined the WSU faculty in 2006, where she has been teaching Economic Development. In 2008 she received a Research Initiation Grant from the WSU Research Council, and spent the summer conducting extensive field research on ecological economics in India. Her study, “Heterogeneity and Collective Management: Evidence from Common Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India” was recently accepted for publication in World Development.

Dr. Zdravka Todorova, Assistant Professor of Economics, joined the WSU faculty in 2006, where she teaches Macroeconomics and Economic, Social, and Ecological Systems. She recently won the Veblen Prize, an international award, for her 2007 doctoral dissertation, Reconsidering Households in Economic Theory. She is the author of “Deficits and Institutional Theorizing about Households and the State” in the Journal of Economic Issues, 41(2), 2007, and “Habits of Thought, Agency, and Transformation: An Institutional Approach to Ecological Economics” in Feminist Economics, 11(3), 2005.

Dr. Robert Premus, Professor of Economics, travelled to China in 2008 to teach Analysis of the Global Economy in Wright State’s Beijing MBA program. He recently coauthored “Information Sharing in Global Supply Chain Alliances” in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, 9(2), 2008.

Dr. Barbara E. Hopkins, Associate Professor of Economics, teaches several internationally-focused courses, including Non-Western Economic Systems, The Global Economy, and International Perspectives on Gender and Policy. She is the author of “Western Cosmetics in the Gendered Development of Consumer Culture in China” Feminist Economics:  Special Issue on China and the WTO, 13(3-4), 2007.

Dr. Tran Huu Dung, Associate Professor of Economics, teaches International Economics in the Master of Science in Social and Applied Economics program as well as the undergraduate programs. He is a faculty advisor to the WSU Vietnamese Student Association, serves as Editor in chief of Thoi Dai Moi (A Quarterly Review of Vietnamese Studies), and as a commentator for Radio France International. He contributes frequently to Vietnamese periodicals; recently presented a paper entitled “Determinants of Development” at a conference in France, and is the author of A Microeconomics Reader, published by Routledge Press in 2008.

Dr. Paulette Olson, Professor of Economics, recently returned from a sabbatical in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where she attended conferences and conducted a pilot study of student career intentions.

Dr. Liu Na, Associate Professor of Economics at Hunan University in China, will be a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Economics at WSU during the 2008-2009 academic year. She plans to conduct research on insurance and capital markets.