The Ford School is very pleased to welcome Assistant Professor Ashley A. Langerto the faculty.
Professor Langer's research interests include environmental economics, energy economics, and industrial organization. She is currently studying price discrimination based on consumer demographics in the new vehicle market. In particular she is investigating the role of demographic differences in consumer demand on pricing. Langer is also investigating vehicle manufacturers' estimates of consumer demand for fuel economy, as evidenced by vehicle pricing decisions.
In the Winter 2010 term, Langer will teach one of the Ford School's core graduate courses in microeconomics.
Langer previously worked at the Brookings Institution and received her PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ashley comes to the University as part of a team of new faculty recruited to grow the University's faculty expertise in energy and the social sciences. Last year, the Ford School's Carl Simon led a successful proposal for University funding to enable an interdisciplinary "cluster hire" - three new junior faculty with appointments in economics, political science, and public policy. The U-M is committed to becoming a world leader in energy research; this set of hires was designed to strengthen and enrich the social science and public policy aspects of that work on campus.
All three faculty searches were successful. In addition to Ashley, the Economics Department hired Shaun McRae, who earned his PhD at Stanford University and the Political Science Department added Brian Min, from UCLA.
Read more about the new faculty team.