Economics

Mehtabul Azam's primary research interests are in the area of development and labor. Specific topics that he has examined include teacher quality, returns to language skills, wage inequality, intra-household allocation, and intergenerational mobility. He also has worked on numerous policy issues for The World Bank, International Labor Organization (ILO), and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His research has been published or accepted for publication in scholarly journals including Journal of Development Economics, Demography, Economic Development and Cultural Change, World Development, and Journal of Development Studies.

I am an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. I am currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Regional Studies. I am also serving as a representative on the OSU Faculty Council. 

My research centers on the intersection of urban, regional, and spatial economics, as well as economic geography, with a particular emphasis on empirical analysis and applied microeconomics. I am also passionate about teaching and enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with students.

I earned my PhD in Economics from Clark University in 2017 and my B.A. from the Central University of Finance and Economics in 2011. Before joining Oklahoma State University in 2019, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for Real Estate and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and was also a Visiting Scholar at the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management.

Dr. J.B. Kim's primary research covers a range of topics to address issues in International Macroeconomics, International Finance, and Financial Economics with emphasis on nonstationary analysis of Financial and Macroeconomic Time Series. His research has been published in many academic journals including Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Empirical Fiannce, Economics Letters, International Journal of Production Economics, Economic Modelling, Monetary and Economic Studies, Review of International Economics and other scholarly journals.

Dr. James E. Payne is Dean of the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University and holds the Norman and Suzanne Myers Endowed Chair and the Richard W. Poole Professorship. He serves as a Hamm Institute for Amercian Energy Faculty Fellow.  In addition to his twenty-four years of leadership and administrative experience in higher education, Dr. Payne has continued to be an active researcher in applied economics with his more recent work focused on energy and financial economics. Dr. Payne has published more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles in such outlets as the Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Economic History, Journal of International Money and Finance, Canadian Journal of Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Economics Letters, Energy Economics, Ecological Economics, Public Choice, Journal of Macroeconomics, Annals of Tourism Research, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Financial Research, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, European Journal of Political Economy, and Economic Modelling, to name a few, which has generated over 28,000 citations to his research. His scholarly work has been recognized in the Stanford-Elsevier global ranking of researchers. Dr. Payne served as a Fulbright Research Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Institute of Economics in Zagreb, Croatia. Dr. Payne is also an associate editor and editorial board member for several academic journals. Dr. Payne received his B.A. in Economics from Berea College along with his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Florida State University.

Dan Rickman's research focuses on rural and urban economies. Specific topics that he has examined include: the effects of energy extraction and the natural environment on regional growth and development; regional business cycles; regional migration and immigration; regional modeling for economic forecasting and policy analysis; regional poverty; and the long-standing influence of the rural-urban hierarchy on regional growth and development. His recently published research has appeared in journals such as Energy Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Economic Surveys, Papers in Regional Science, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and Regional Studies. He was awarded the Regents' Distinguished Research Award in 2006. Dan serves on the editorial boards of  Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Journal of Regional Science, Papers in Regional Science, and Reaching Regions. He is a Fellow of the Southern Regional Science Association and Regional Science Association International. He has received both the David Boyce Award for Service to Regional Science and the Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement from the North American Regional Science Council.

Wenyi Shen is Associate Professor of Economics and Glenn M. Stinchcomb Family Professor at the Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research interests span macroeconomics, monetary economics, and fiscal policy, with a focus on how fiscal and monetary policy interactions affect inflation, debt sustainability, and business cycle dynamics. Her research has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Monetary Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Developement Economics, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and has been presented at major academic conferences across North America, Europe, and Asia. 

Qinghe (Sunny) Su is an applied microeconomist with research interests in development economics, labor economics, energy economics, and gender inequality.

Xiaojin (Aaron) Sun is an Associate Professor of Economics at Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business. His research focuses on real estate and housing markets, with an emphasis on how economic shocks, policy, and infrastructure shape local outcomes. His work has been published in leading economics journals, including Journal of Money, Credit and Banking and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, as well as top real estate journals such as Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, and Journal of Real Estate Research, where his paper on agent networks received the 2025 Best Article Award. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economics and Finance.

Hongbo Wang's research focuses on applied economic topics within the context of regional economic performance. Research topics include, but are not limited to, energy extraction and regional economies, regional growth and development, regional business cycles, regional migration, state and local taxation, teacher salaries, and housing. Her recently published research has appeared in journals such as Energy Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Surveys, Papers in Regional Science, Applied Economics, Contemporary Economic Policy, Annals of Regional Science, International Regional Science Review, Public Finance Review, and Reaching Regions. She has worked with stakeholders in the state through providing economic forecasts.

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. 

I am interested in industrial organization and real estate and urban economics. My research also touches topics in development economics. My research uses theoretical models, structural estimation techniques, and causal inference methods to study important policy questions.

I received my PhD from the University of Maryland in 2024.

Here is my website: https://sites.google.com/view/qiyaozhou/home

My CV can be found here: Qiyao Zhou's CV_2509