Mark J. Perry


Mark Joseph Perry is an American economist and professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at University of Michigan–Flint.

Biography

Education

He has an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and both a M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Since 1997, he has been a member of the Board of Scholars for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan.

Work

He is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He maintains a blog, Carpe Diem and is a frequent contributor at SeekingAlpha.com.

Analysis

He has written about gender issues, including differences in wage rates between men and women, for publications such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He has been critical of how the difference in pay has been measured and the conclusions drawn. For example, he argues differences in hours worked, education and having children should be accounted for.
He has written that increasing the minimum wage may lead to job losses, criticizing a report by John Komlos who argued few jobs would be lost. Economist Jacob Vigdor later stated that Perry's analysis was carried out using faulty data; in response, Perry said "The jury is still out on the $15 minimum wage, and it will take years to assess its impact. I'm simply pointing to some possible evidence in employment trends that might suggest that there is early evidence of some effects."
Affirming that the consumer confidence was a lagging indicator in econometrics, he criticised Obama's policies of demand market stimulation like the proposal of subsidizing electric and hybrid cars' sector, both for producers and consumers. Perry qualified public economic subsidies as a "boondoggle" and a severe market distortion, which would have been hindered the development of other alternative technologies such as hybrids and gasoline advanced engines.

Civil rights complaint

In June 2016 Perry filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights seeking the closure of Michigan State University's Women's Lounge, alleging that having a private place for women to study on campus discriminated against men, and was a violation of civil rights. He claimed the female only facility was a violation of both the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative and the equal opportunity in education act Title IX.

Selected publications

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