Professional Staff
Clopper Almon

Clopper Almon is the founder of Inforum, which he began at the University of Maryland soon after leaving Harvard in 1966. Dr. Almon has been a pioneer in developing macroeconomic and interindustry models, as well as software for econometric analysis and model building. His latest book, The Craft of Economic Modeling, teaches model building through hands-on experience with his econometric software package, called G. Dr. Almon has pushed strongly through the years to make Inforum truly an international organization, forging links with other organizations in many countries who have become Inforum partners. He has designed and written a software package called Interdyme, which provides an object-oriented environment for the development of interindustry models. Clopper retired from full-time teaching in 2003 and now is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at the University of Maryland. He remains the director of Inforum and the chairman of the IERF Board.
Jeffrey Werling

Jeff is Executive Director of Inforum. In addition to managing the day-to-day activity at Inforum, he serves as principal investigator for special projects applying Inforum modeling systems. He has completed recent studies on the economic implications of energy policy, immigration, exchange rate fluctuations, and port disruptions due to terrorist strikes. Jeff also teaches an undergraduate course in economic development. Previously, he held positions as an international and industry economist with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), the Manufacturers Alliance (MAPI), and the WEFA Group (now Global Insight). Jeff received a PhD in economics from the University of Maryland in 1992.
Margaret McCarthy

Margaret has been with Inforum since 1970 as a Faculty Research Assistant in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. Her principal responsibilities are in the operation, application, and maintenance of LIFT, Inforum's 97-sector interindustry-macroeconomic model of the United States. Other work at Inforum has included production and presentation of the group's economic outlook at conferences of subscribers. She works frequently on consulting projects involving applications of input-output models and data. She also has been in charge of Inforum's production of updated input-output tables for the United States. Margaret leads Inforum’s assistance to the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Douglas Nyhus

Doug develops and maintains the international interindustry models and the bilateral trade system linking countries into a world forecasting system. Doug performs many analyses with the international/bilateral trade system. He has supported impact analyses by U.S. government agencies for studies of the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Indian economies. He has nearly 30 years of experience working with international models and data, and has been instrumental in developing the Inforum international network of researchers. Doug has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
Douglas Meade

Doug returned to Inforum in May, 2006, after serving 3 years as Deputy Chief of the Industry Division at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Before working for BEA, Doug contributed significantly to the development of the Lift, Iliad and DEPPS models for the U.S., and the Jidea model for Japan. He has served as principal investigator on a wide variety of projects for private sector and government clients. He has nearly 20 years of experience with economic modeling and data development, and has also held positions at Data Resources Inc., and the Bureau of Census. Doug received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
Ronald Horst

Ron has worked at Inforum since 2001, and he joined the full-time staff at Inforum after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 2006. His dissertation concerned the economics of the U.S. nuclear power industry. His work at Inforum includes the development, maintenance, and support of G7 and Interdyme, Inforum’s proprietary statistical and modeling software packages, and maintenance of the Inforum web site. Ron designed and constructed a model of the Spanish region of Andalucia. His contributions to Inforum’s U.S. model include development and estimation of investment, labor productivity, and consumption equations. Other work includes compilation and prediction of industry data at highly disaggregated levels.
Graduate Students
Xue Li

Xue has been with Inforum since January, 2006. She works with Doug Nyhus to develop and maintain Mudan, Inforum's multisectoral model of China. Xue's interests include labor economics.
Pacharasut Sujarittanonta

Pat is a Ph.D. student at Department of Economics. He joined the team of graduate students at Inforum in February, 2007.
Undergraduate Students
Matias Antonio
Matias is a Economics-Math double major at the University of Maryland, College Park. He joined Inforum in the spring of 2008. He takes great interest in development economics and, upon completion of his undergraduate studies, he plans pursue a PhD in the field.
Inforum Graduates
San Sampattavanija

San completed his dissertation in January, 2008. His work, entitled Generating Up-To-Date Starting Values for Detailed Forecasting Models, improves the ability of applied economists to compile up-to-date economic data. San returned to his home in Thailand in February, 2008 with plans to teach.
Xiaohan Hu
Xiaohan completed her dissertation in the Department of Economics in 2007. Xiahan became an honorary member of Inforum in 2004 while working with Dr. Mahlon Straszheim to develop and maintain a model of Maryland using Inforum software and techniques.
Ronald Horst
Ron completed his dissertation The Economics of Nuclear Power in the fall of 2006. Upon graduation, he accepted a full-time position at Inforum.
Li Ding
Li completed his thesis: United States Households Consumption, A Comprehensive Analysis in the fall of 2006. He graduated in December of 2006.
Somprawin Manprasert
Somprawin completed his thesis: A Thai Interindustry Dynamic Model With Optimization in May, 2004. He returned to Thailand and now is working at Chulalongkorn University. He recently presented his dissertation work at Inforum World Conference XII.
Dan Wilson
Dan completed his thesis: Capital-Embodied Technological Change: Measurement and Productivity Effects in May 2001. In his thesis, he developed a way to measure the speed of quality improvement in new capital goods, and constructed an alternative measure of capital stock by industry using this parameter. The capital stocks were then used in a model which successfully relates capital investment by industry to labor productivity. Dan now works at the San Franciso Federal Reserve Bank.
Qing Wang
Qing Wang finished Trade Flows and Trade Protection: A Multi-Country and Multi-Sectoral Investigation, in Fall, 2000. In his thesis, he examined the effects of tariff and non-tariff barriers by commodity by country on imports. This work built upon the Bilateral Trade Model of Qiang Ma, and a trade protection database developed by Qing, based on United Nations and other data. Qing recently left the IMF to work with Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong.
Qisheng Yu
Qisheng graduated in December, 1999 after successfully defending his thesis in November. The title of his thesis is Mudan: A China Model for Multisectoral Development Analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only complete interindustry model of China, and its development continues at Inforum. Qisheng is now working for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Chicago.
Tim Dowd
Tim's thesis is entitled Labor Supply, Fertility and the Economy. Tim is now working at the Joint Tax Committee. His thesis was completed in Spring, 1998.
Qiang Ma
Qiang graduated in Spring, 1996, and his thesis was A Multisectoral Bilateral World Trade Model. Several of Qiang's working papers that describe the development of that model are available in our working papers. Qiang is working for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Washington, D.C.
Jeffry Janoska
Jeffrey's thesis was Modeling Personal Consumption and Government Transfers in a Long-Run Macroeconometric Forecasting Model, and was completed in 1996. Jeffry also has several papers related to his thesis in our working papers. He is now working at the American Council for Life Insurance.
Robert Shackleton
Bob developed our model of Great Britain. His thesis, An Input-Output Forecasting Model of the British Economy, was completed in 1992. Bob currently works at the Congressional Budget Office.
Jeffrey Werling
Jeff worked in Spain for several years with Fundacion Tomillo, and developed their model, called MIDE. His thesis was completed in 1992, and was entitled: MIDE: A Macroeconomic Multisectoral Model of the Spanish Economy. Jeffrey currently works for Inforum.
Lorraine Monaco
Lorraine essentially developed and tested what is currently the price-income side of the LIFT model. She completed her thesis in 1991, The Price-Income Side of an Interindustry Model: Development and Simulations. Lorraine is the happy mother of two children, Michael and Mary.
Chang-yu I. Chao
Chang-yu updated and extended Paul Devine's earlier work on the integration of the cross-sectional and time-series analysis of personal consumption. Her thesis, completed in 1991, was entitled A Cross-Sectional and Time-Series Analysis of Household Consumption and a Forecast of Personal Consumption Expenditures.
Douglas Meade
Doug graduated in May, 1990. His thesis was entitled Investment in a Macroeconometric Interindustry Model. In it, he developed several alternative equipment investment forecasting models, and tested their relative predictive power.
Stephen Pollock
Steve built the detailed personal income tax model, in his thesis Income Taxes in a Long-Term Macroeconometric Forecasting Model, which was completed in December 1986. Steve is at KPMG Peat Marwick in the Colorado office.
Matthew Hyle
Matt built the price-income side for the first version of the LIFT model. This work is described in his thesis An Interindustry Forecasting Model for Prices and Factor Incomes for the U.S., completed in 1985.
Ralph Monaco
Ralph was one of the primary architects of the LIFT model, and focused on financial and macro behavior. He completed his thesis in 1984, entitled Interindustry and Macroeconomic Effects of Monetary Policy: A Long-Term Modeling Perspective. Ralph is currently at the Treasury Department.
David Robison
David's thesis consisted of three studies. The first investigated the question of how industrial pollution abatement costs are distributed across income classes. The second looked at the long-run profitability of building a plant to produce ethanol from corn. The final study was a project to build a detailed input-output model of 425 sectors. The thesis, entitled Three Applications of Input-Output Modeling, was completed in December 1983. David is now a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia.
Paul Devine
Paul developed and refined Almon's model of personal consumption, in a thesis entitled Forecasting Personal Consumption Expenditures from Cross-Section and Time-Series Data, completed in 1983.
Anthony Barbera
Tony was the first to explore the modeling of interrelated factor demands within the LIFT model. His thesis was A Study of the Determinants of Factor Demand by Industry, completed in 1982. Tony is a partner at KPMG Peat Marwick.
Peter Taylor
Peter used the Generalized Leontief cost function to estimate coefficient change in response to price, in the energy and transportation industries. His thesis, Estimating Price Effects on Input-Output Coefficients, was completed in 1981. Peter worked for many years on Capitol Hill and is now retired.
Patrick Henaff
Patrick worked with Clopper and Doug Nyhus at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in the late 1970s, and then visited at Maryland for a year, to help begin the LIFT model of the U.S. His master's thesis was An Input-Output Model of the French Economy, completed in 1980.
David Belzer
David was the first to construct a closed model of incomes and prices, in his thesis: An Integration of Prices, Wages and Income Flows in an Input-Output Model of the United States. This thesis was completed in 1978, before work on the LIFT model was begun. Therefore, the value added equations bridged to the 200-sector classification used in the older Inforum model. David has worked for Batelle-Northwest since leaving Inforum in the late 1970s.
David Gilmartin
In his thesis, David explored a markup model of price forecasting, and also investigated price models using quarterly data. The thesis was entitled Forecasting Prices in an Input-Output Framework, and was completed in 1976.
Young Sun Lee
Although he hails from South Korea, Young Sun constructed the first Inforum model of the Japanese economy. Like Reimbold before him, he subjected his model to rigorous simulation testing. His thesis was entitled An Input-Output Forecasting Model of the Japanese Economy, and was completed in 1976.
Douglas Nyhus
Doug described in his thesis a world trade model which would be linked by bilateral trade flows and commodity prices by country. Such a model was not actually developed until the 1990s, but Doug's thesis helped provide the motivation for the development of the Inforum International System. The thesis, The Trade Model of a Dynamic World Input-Output Forecasting System was completed in 1975. Doug is still with Inforum.
Thomas Reimbold
Thomas was one of the architects of the Inforum 185-sector model that was a predecessor to LIFT. In this thesis, Simulation with a Dynamic Interindustry Forecasting Model, he describes the development of the stochastic equations in this model, and then analyzes the behavior of the model in simulation tests. His thesis was completed in 1974.
