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Picture
March 2025, freight train with over 100 fully loaded coal wagons crossing the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle.
 Photo taken in 2019 at West Virginia University
​​Research Interests

​Economic policy, particularly (1) regional and rural economics and development; (2) international labor migration; (3) domestic job and occupational mobility; (4) natural resource management issues related to amenities, planning, and energy, and their implications for economic development. (5) Economic philosophy and history of economic thought.
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Education
Ph.D. (econ.), University of Southern California, 1981
M.A. (econ.), University of Southern California, 1979
​lic. oec. publ. (econ.), University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1975

Current Responsibility

  • Editor-in-chief, section Energy Economics and Policy of the journal Energies, since 2018 

​Calling Card

Employment History 

 West Virginia University
  • Professor Emeritus, since 2021
  • Interim Director, Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences, 2019-2021
  • Professor of Resource Economics and Management, 1993-2021
  • Faculty Research Associate, Regional Research Institute (RRI), 1993-2021
  • Director, Division of Resource Management, 1993-2006
  • Director, Division of Family and Consumer Sciences, 2004-2006
University of Colorado at Denver
  • ​Director, Urban and Regional Planning Program, 1988-1993
  • Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, 1987-1993
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, 1982-1988 (on leave of absence 1987-88)
Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, PR China
  • ​Visiting Professor, 2016-2019
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z)
  • Visiting Professor, Division of Landscape and Environmental Planning, 1999-2000 (on twelve-months sabbatical leave from WVU)
International Labour Office (ILO), Geneva, Switzerland
  • Visiting Research Associate, June 1990
Carl Fingerhuth & Partner, ​Zurich, Switzerland [current name: PLANAR AG]
  • Economist/Regional Planner, 1974-1976