John R. Kimberly Distinguished Professor
Department of Economics
Lawrence University
210 Briggs Hall
(920) 993-6035
david.gerard at lawrence.edu
I am the John R. Kimberly Distinguished Professor in the department of economics. I have broad interests in risk regulation and public policy, particularly energy and the environment.
I came to Lawrence in 2009 after eight years at Carnegie Mellon University, six as executive director of the Center for the Study & Improvement of Regulation (CSIR) in the Department of Engineering & Public Policy. I also taught courses in the Department of Social & Decision Sciences and for the masters program in Engineering & Technology Innovation Management (ETIM).
Prior to that, I spent five years in Montana as a Research Associate at the (then) Political Economy Research Center (PERC) and as an adjunct professor at Montana State University.
In Fall 2016 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory & Policy Analysis at Indiana University where I looked at how the expansion of the Department of Homeland Security has affected the trajectory of the US regulatory state.
I have had direct engagement with US policy on several occasions. Most notably, I served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration from 2010 to 2012, a committee formed in response to those troubling Toyota runaway vehicles cases. And perhaps more importantly, I testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works regarding Clean Water Act reform in 2000 — legislation that Congress finally passed in 2024!
I offer a mostly broad — but definitely related! — set of courses at Lawrence. I teach the intermediate microeconomics class, with a heavy focus on price theory. I regularly offer courses on environmental economics (ECON 280) and on world energy markets (ECON 285). The former focuses on how economics priniciples establish the architecture for US public policy, the latter explores the dominant role in markets in worldwide energy flows. My upper-level seminars are two flavors of institutional and organizational economics. “The Big Seminar” (ECON 444) is an accounting of the once and future of US antitrust treatment of big business. policy, and Organizational Economics (ECON 450) addresses a fundamental question: If markets are so great, why are there firms? That’s a puzzle, indeed.
In 2015 I received the Faculty Convocation Award for distinguished professional work, and gave a talk on climate change at that year’s Honors Convocation. I have several other talks available online, including at Grinnell College’s Rosenfield Symposium on corporate social responsibility, and a First-Year Studies’ lecture on Thomas Schelling’s Micromotives & Macrobehavior.
I was named to the John R. Kimberly Distinguished Professorship in the American Economic System beginning in 2016-17. The Kimberly-Clark corporation established the Chair in honor of its former CEO and director in 1977. I am the third professor to hold the Chair, following in the footsteps of Jim Dana and Marty Finkler.
In 2021, Lawrence University interviewed me on the snow-covered Main Hall Green.
I have a Ph.D. is in economics from the University of Illinois and a B.A. in American studies and economics from Grinnell College.