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our fellows
CBO welcomed its first visiting scholar in 1999. Since then, the agency has worked with some of the leading minds in the economics and public policy professions. Here are a few of our recent scholars.
Chao Wei, Ph.D.
August 2010–May 2011
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| Associate Professor of Economics George Washington University |
Chao Wei is an associate professor of economics at the George Washington University who previously taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research aims to improve our understanding of the interrelationships between the macroeconomy, financial markets, and asset values. She has also studied how sudden unexpected changes in energy prices can affect the economy, and she has modeled the dynamics of the ways people make economic choices that involve gasoline consumption, driving, and fuel efficiency.
While visiting CBO Dr. Wei collaborated with the staff of the Macroeconomic Analysis Division in research on whether uncertainty about economic productivity increases the extent to which taxes on capital income distort economic activity and thereby reduces people's well-being, especially when tax rates are high. Quantifying the economic losses from those distortions helps CBO evaluate the possible economic effects of proposed changes in income taxes. Dr. Wei also provided expert help on a range of other issues, including climate change policy, labor supply behavior, and modeling the behavior of the economy over the business cycle.
Reagan A. Baughman, Ph.D.
September 2009–July 2010
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| Associate Professor of Economics University of New Hampshire |
Reagan Baughman is an associate professor of economics in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Before joining the university faculty, Dr. Baughman was as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Baughman joined CBO's Health and Human Resources Division in the midst of the health care policy debate of 2009 and 2010, and she soon became an important member of the health team. Her work was key in collecting and evaluating evidence and helping CBO to develop cost estimates for provisions of law relating to medical malpractice reform and the regulation of private health insurance markets. A coauthor of three letters to Members of Congress explaining the estimates, Dr. Baughman also worked with staff from several CBO divisions on a large project aimed at estimating the health and longevity effects of various government policies.
David Poyer, Ph.D.
June 2009–July 2009
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| Associate Professor of Economics Morehouse College |
David Poyer is an associate professor of economics at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Before joining the Morehouse faculty, Dr. Poyer was a visiting assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois. He also taught at Lewis University, in Romeoville, Illinois. During his CBO fellowship, Dr. Poyer worked with the agency’s Macroeconomic Analysis Division to investigate the relationship between the distribution of household income and real (inflation-adjusted) personal consumption spending. Using a procedure called vector error correction, Dr. Poyer found evidence to suggest that changes in income distribution may be important indicators of changes in aggregate spending over time.
Renee Ellen Fox, M.D.
January 2008–December 2008
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| Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Maryland School of Medicine |
Renee Fox is an associate professor in the Division of Neonatology of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. From 2007 to 2010, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow. While at CBO, Dr. Fox provided a clinical perspective and guidance on several projects and cost analyses. Working with several staff members, she helped to examine the potential effectiveness of screening and preventive services in Medicare and evidence on the outcomes of alternative strategies for coordinating care in that program. Dr. Fox was the lead analyst in preparing a draft report on the dramatic rise in obesity among children, its causes, and its short- and long-term consequences. The paper outlined changes in lifestyle and other nonmedical interventions to reduce or prevent obesity among children.
Menzie Chinn, Ph.D.
June–July 2005
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| Professor of Economics Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs, Department of Economics University of Wisconsin at Madison |
Currently a member of CBO's Panel of Economic Advisers, Menzie Chinn is a professor at the Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs and the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, served on the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Board. His research examines the empirical and policy aspects of macroeconomic interactions between countries. He also has studied the behavior of exports and imports. As a CBO fellow, Professor Chin reviewed analysts' work on the trade deficit, shifts in the financing of the U.S. current account, interest rate spreads, energy markets, and agricultural trade barriers and the Doha round of trade negotiations.