Ph.D. Graduate Cullum Clark Heads SMU Economics Center

Anyone who has navigated Highway 75 on a weekday morning has observed firsthand the changing demographic and economic landscape of America’s suburbs.  Trends evident here in Dallas-Fort Worth and nationwide include increasing ethnic diversity, growing numbers of immigrants, the arrival of Millennials, and increasing overall diversity across suburbs as well as within them.  These changes have social, economic, business, and political consequences.

The new SMU Economics Center, part of Dedman College of Arts and Sciences, cohosted  on October 26th, 2017.  This conference, which featured former San Antonio Mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros as keynote speaker as well as Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, was the inaugural event hosted by the SMU Economics Center.   to view the Dallas Morning News's article on the conference.  The goals of the Center include providing policy-relevant research, speakers, and events on significant current issues to the Dallas community. 

Cullum Clark (SMU Ph.D. 2017), the first Director of the SMU Economics Center, aims to bring actionable, nonpartisan research on “ideas that would make the world a better place” to a broad audience.  Future projects of the Center will focus on issues in urban economics, education, healthcare, poverty, and the environment, among other topics.  While the Center is grounded in economic analysis, it will pursue a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, with scholars and other experts both within and outside SMU.

The intersection of economics and public policy has long been an interest of Clark, who completed his dissertation on state-sponsored asset market booms in 2017.  Clark is a full-time lecturer in the Department of Economics at SMU in addition to Director of the Economics Center.  He comes to SMU with twenty-four years of experience in the investment industry.  His volunteer activities have included serving since 2008 on SMU’s Investment Committee, and since 2010 on the Board of Trustees of SMU’s Tate Lecture Series, which he currently chairs. 

The Center aims to begin publishing brief research notes beginning in January 2018 and Clark will start publishing an economics blog in October of this year.