Alan Mathios

Alan Mathios

Alan Mathios is currently a Professor at Cornell University and the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean for the College of Human Ecology.

He is a member of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and served as Senior Associate Dean of the College and Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department.  He co-chaired the Middle States Accreditation Steering Committee and helped guide Cornell to its successful re-accreditation.  He came to Cornell following six years of employment at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where he served as a staff economist in the Division of Economic Policy Analysis and as an econometrics consultant to the Bureau of Economics. A major focus of his research is on the effect of Food and Drug Administration regulatory policies on consumer and firm behavior. His research also focuses on government tax policy and its impact on smoking onset and cessation. His research has been funded by a variety of sources including the National Cancer Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Merck Foundation Co. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching and advising awards including the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Cornell University Kendal S. Carpenter Advising Award.  He has recently been reappointed to a second term as Dean beginning July 1, 2013.
 

Alan Mathios serves as the North American Editor of the Journal of Consumer Policy and is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He also was the Project Leader on the Merck Foundation Co. Program, Consumers, Pharmaceutical Policy and Health and has served as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on several NIH grants focused on smoking cessation and advertising.  He currently is part of the proposal to establish at Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science at Cornell University.

The major focus of his research is on the effect of government regulation of information on consumer welfare. Research includes analysis of Food and Drug Administration policies governing advertising of health information and its impact on consumer health outcomes.  His most recent research is focused on the impact of private sector advertising of smoking cessation products, public service anti tobacco advertising and cigarette advertising on smoking behavior.  Other work focuses on the impact of food advertising on food and nutrition choices as well as the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical advertising on consumer health decisions.  His most recent project is focused on comparing the effectiveness of tobacco sponsored anti-smoking advertising, pharmaceutical firm anti-smoking advertising (for products such as the nicotine patch and gum), and public sector anti-smoking advertising.  He has been part of the effort to establish a Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science.
 

Mathios' work has relevance for outreach in the area of federal regulation of advertising policy.  His work directly addresses policy issues surrounding disclosure requirements for pharmaceutical product advertising and his work is highly cited by researchers, policy makers at several government agencies and various think tank and advocacy groups.  He has served as a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration and   to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences on Food Marketing and Obesity.  His work has been featured on National Public Radio and in newspapers throughout the country.
 

State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
B.A., Economics/Psychology, May 1980
Honors: Cum Laude

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Ph.D in Economics, December 1985
 

Mathios has taught a number of courses that provide students with an understanding of economic theory, how economics interacts with legal and regulatory systems and how policies impact on overall welfare.  These courses include:
 

• PAM 2000 (Intermediate Microeconomic Theory)
• PAM 3410 (The Economics of Consumer Protection and the Law)
• PAM 4610 (Public Policy and Marketing)
• PAM 6400 (Information, Regulation and Consumer Policy)

Mathios is the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology. He co-chaired the Steering Committee for the Middle States Accreditation Self Study and currently serves on numerous other University Committees.  He is on the leadership team responsible for implementing administrative streamlining in the area of Facilities, Utilities and Reserves and serves on a task force focused on undergraduate financial aid.  He is also a member of the Executive Policy Review Board and a member of the the Access to Care Executive Group.  

Selected Publications since 2006:

Byrne, S., Mathios, A., Avery, R. & Hart, P. S., “The Unintended Consequences of Disclosure: The Impact of Manipulating Sponsor Identification on the Perceived Credibility and Effectiveness of Smoking Cessation Advertisements," Journal of Health Communication, 2012.

DeCicca, P., Kenkel, D., and Mathios, A., “Cigarette Taxes and the Transition from Youth to Adult Smoking: Smoking Initiation, Cessation, and Participation,” Journal of Health Economics, 27 (4), 904-917, 2008. [abstract]

Avery, R., Kenkel, D., Lillard, D., Mathios, A., and Wang, H., “Health Disparities and Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceutical Products,”  Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, 2008.

DeCicca, P., Kenkel, D., Mathios, A., Shin, J., and Lim, J. “Youth Smoking, Cigarette Prices, and Anti-Smoking Sentiment,” Health Economics, 17 (6), 733-749, 2008. [abstract]

Avery, R, Kenkel, D., Lillard D. and Mathios A. “Regulating Advertisements: The Case of Smoking Cessation Products,” Journal of Regulatory Economics. 31 (2), 185-208, 2007. [abstract]

Lillard, D. Plassmann, V. Kenkel D. and Mathios, A. “Who Kicks the Habit and How They Do It: Socioeconomic Differences across Methods of quitting smoking in the USA,” Social Science and Medicine, 64 (12), 2504-2519, 2007. [abstract]

Avery, R., Kenkel, D., Lillard, D., and Mathios, A. “Public Profits and Public Health: Does Advertising Smoking Cessation Products Encourage Smokers to Quit? Journal of Political Economy,115 (447-481), 2007. [abstract]

Rosemary J. Avery, W. Keith Bryant, Alan Mathios, Hyojin Kang, Duncan Bell, "Electronic Course Evaluations: Does an On-line Delivery System Influence Student Evaluations?" Journal of Economic Education 37 (1), 21-37, 2006.  [abstract]

Helen Schneider and Mathios A. “Principal Agency Theory and Health Care Utilization,” Economic Inquiry, 44 (3) 429-441, 2006. [abstract]

Kenkel, D., Lillard, D., and Mathios A. “The Role of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity,” Journal of Labor Economics, 24 (3), 635-660, 2006. [abstract]