Murphy Institute director joins Tulane Law affiliated faculty

Tulane Prof. Gary “Hoov” Hoover, the Executive Director of the Murphy Institute and an internationally-recognized scholar of economics, race and public policy, has been appointed an Affiliated Faculty Member of Tulane Law School.

Hoover came to Tulane last year, selected to lead the prestigious Murphy Institute and serve as a full professor of economics. He arrived from the University of Oklahoma where he had chaired the Department of Economics since 2015.

A prolific scholar and renowned economist in the study of economic policy and its impact on wealth and income inequality, Hoover last April was among more than 40 experts and Nobel Prize laureates to speak that the inaugural Nobel Prize Summit, which brought scholars, activists and experts together to address issues of global impact in the sciences, health, environmental policy and more. Hoover spoke on economics and inequality, a focus of his extensive scholarship.

“Gary Hoover’s path-breaking research on the ways in which economic policies reinforce racial inequalities and harden barriers to equal opportunity has profound implications for law and dovetails with work being done by others at the law school,” said Dean David Meyer.  “We are thrilled to welcome him to Tulane and to the law school faculty and look forward to collaborating with him in the future.” 

Hoover is a member, and co-chair, of the American Economics Association’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession. This group was established in 1968 to increase the representation of minorities in the economics profession, primarily by broadening opportunities for the training of underrepresented minorities.

Hoover also is the current and founding editor of the Journal of Economics, Race and Policy, which examines the intersection of local and global issues concerning economic conditions, race, ethnicity and gender, and policy prescriptions that address economic disparities.  He served as the vice president of the Southern Economic Association from 2018-2020. He has been a fellow at CESifo Group Munich since 2010 and is a member of the Western Economic Association and American Economic Association.

Prior to joining the University of Oklahoma, Hoover was the William White McDonald Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the University of Alabama and Assistant Dean for Faculty and Graduate Student Development in the Culverhouse College of Business Administration.

Hoover becomes the ninth member of the law school’s Affiliated Faculty, joining Architecture Dean Iñaki Alday; political science professor Mirya Holman; Walter Isaacson, the Leonard Lauder Professor of American Values and History; Dennis Kehoe, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities; Sally Kenney, a political science professor and Newcomb College Endowed Chair; Nghana Lewis, the Louise & Leonard Riggio Professorship in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship and a judge in Louisiana’s 40th District Court; political science professor Nancy Maveety; and Steven Sheffrin, an economics professor and Murphy Institute director emeritus.

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