Mathios, Alan D

Dean
Alan Mathios is currently a Professor at Cornell University and Dean for the College of Human Ecology.

He is a member of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and served as Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department. He is the North American Editor of the Journal of Consumer Policy and on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He is also the Project Leader on the Merck Foundation Co. Program Consumers, Pharmaceutical Policy and Health. He came to Cornell following six years of employment at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where he served as a staff economist in the Division of Economic Policy Analysis and as an econometrics consultant to the Bureau of Economics. A major focus of his research is on the effect of Food and Drug Administration regulatory policies on consumer and firm behavior. His research also focuses on government tax policy and its impact on smoking onset and cessation. His research has been funded by a variety of sources including the National Cancer Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Merck Foundation Co. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching and advising awards including the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Cornell University Kendal S. Carpenter Advising Award.

research

research and scholarship focus

The major focus of his research is on the effect of government regulation of information dissemination on consumer welfare. Research includes analysis of Food and Drug Administration policies governing advertising of health information and its impact on consumer health outcomes. His most recent research is focused on the impact of private sector advertising of smoking cessation products, public service anti tobacco advertising and cigarette advertising on smoking behavior. Other work focuses on the impact of food advertising on food and nutrition choices as well as the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical advertising on consumer health decisions.

affiliations

head of

faculty appointment in

administrative appointment

member of graduate field

other Cornell affiliations

administrative responsibilities

Currently, Mathios is the Dean of the College. Prior to this appointment he served as Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. In this role he had responsibility for all matters related to undergraduate education and represented the College of Human Ecology on various University initiatives. In addition, he served as part of a team of administrators that are involved in the operation of the college broadly defined.

teaching

teaching focus

Mathios has taught a number of courses that provide students with an understanding of economic theory, how economics interacts with legal and regulatory systems and how policies impact on overall welfare.

recent courses taught

PAM 200 (Intermediate Microeconomic Theory)
PAM 341 (The Economics of Consumer Protection and the Law)
PAM 461 (Public Policy and Marketing)
PAM 640 (Information, Regulation and Consumer Policy)

service

outreach focus

Mathios's work has relevance for outreach in the area of federal regulation of advertising policy. His work directly addresses policy issues surrounding dislcosure requirements for pharmaceutical product advertising and his work his highly cited by researchers, policy makers at several government agencies and various think tank and advocacy groups. He has served as a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration and to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences on Food Marketing and Obesity. His work has been featured on National Public Radio and in newspapers throughout the country.

current professional activities

Alan Mathios is currently a Professor at Cornell University in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and Dean of the College of Human Ecology. He serves as the North American Editor of the Journal of Consumer Policy and is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He is also the Project Leader on the Merck Foundation Co. Program, Consumers, Pharmaceutical Policy and Health, the principal Investigator of a major NIH grant focused on smoking cessation and advertising as well as co-principal investigator on other NIH grant awards.

background

educational background

  • B.A. (Economics/Psychology), State University of New York at Buffalo, May 1980 [Honors: Cum Laude]
  • Ph.D (Economics), University of Pennsylvania, December 1985

publications

selected publications (listing in progress)

Publications since 2006:

DeCicca, P., Kenkel, D., Mathios, A., Shin, J., and Lim, J. "Youth Smoking, Cigarette Prices, and Anti-Smoking Sentiment," Forthcoming, Health Economics, 2008.

Avery, R, Kenkel, D., Lillard D. and Mathios A. "Regulating Advertisements: The Case of Smoking Cessation Products," Journal of Regulatory Economics. 31 (2), 185-208, 2007

Lillard, D. Plassmann, V. Kenkel D. and Mathios, A. "Who Kicks the Habit and How They Do It: Socioeconomic Differences across Methods of quitting smoking in the USA," Social Science and Medicine, 64 (12), 2504-2519, 2007

Avery, R., Kenkel, D., Lillard, D., and Mathios, A. "Public Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit? Journal of Political Economy,115 (447-481), 2007.

Rosemary J. Avery, W. Keith Bryant, Alan Mathios, Hyojin Kang, Duncan Bell, Electronic Course Evaluations: Does an On-line Delivery System Influence Student Evaluations? Journal of Economic Education 37 (1), 21-37, 2006

Helen Schneider and Mathios A. "Principal Agency Theory and Health Care Utilization," Economic Inquiry, 44 (3) 429-441, 2006

Kenkel, D., Lillard, D., and Mathios A. "The Role of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity," Journal of Labor Economics, 24 (3), 635-660, 2006.