FACULTY, CENTER FOR GRADUATE STUDIES
Dr. Johnston is the Chair of the Economics and Finance Department, for the Center for Graduate Studies at Baker College. I developed and continue to direct the MBA concentration in Finance. I developed and directed the MBA concentration in International Business, before it was dropped. I also helped to develop our DBA degree program, and currently teach part-time in that program. I've been teaching finance and economics courses on-line and on-ground in our MBA program since we first offered that program in 1995. On-ground, I’ve taught at many of our college campuses and at corporate sites. I was the Director of the certified financial planner (CFP) program on-line and taught some of those six finance courses, before we discontinued that certificate program. I previously taught at the University of Michigan at Flint, and at the University of Texas at Austin. In most years since 1986, I have participated in several academic conferences, presenting my research papers in economics and finance, reviewing and discussing other professors' research papers, and chairing sessions. My publications include a managerial economics textbook, three editions of the study guide for Abel and Bernanke’s Macroeconomics textbook, conference proceedings, and journal articles. For 2007-2010, I was a managing editor of the Journal of International Finance and Economics (JIFE), published by the International Academy of Business and Economics (IABE).
Ph.D - Economics - 1988, University of Texas - Austin
Redistribution of Estate Wealth: A Positive Stimulus to Economic Development
UMI: AAT 8901343
The dissertation provides a theoretical and empirical test of the following hypothesis: A highly skewed distribution of wealth, established by permitting huge estates to be inherited by a select, privileged few in the society, has significant, negative effects on U.S. economic development.
Chapter One provides an extensive review of the development literature to define economic development in terms of its broad themes (i.e., the dimensions of economic development). These broad themes suggest potential effects of the concentration of wealth and its substantial dependence on inherited wealth. One significant finding is that restricting the analysis of social welfare improvements to Pareto optimality analysis excessively constrains our understanding of the complex, dynamic process of economic development.
Chapter Two provides data on the distribution of wealth and the incidence of poverty in the contemporary U.S. economy, and data on the extent to which wealth concentration depends on inherited wealth. One significant effect of such concentration of wealth is that it substantially decreases the opportunities for upward social mobility by those born into poverty.
Chapter Three shows that the concentration of wealth and the distribution of wealth on the basis of inheritance rather than merit directly constrain Americans' abilities to achieve the socio-political ideals of "individual freedom" and "equal opportunity", and threaten to undermine the institutions of "decentralized democracy" and "competitive capitalism".
Chapter Four provides a theoretical test of the principal hypothesis, based on a broad set of contemporary economic theories. Chapter Five provides an empirical test of the principal hypothesis, based on a broad set of data from the contemporary U.S. economy.
To the best of my knowledge, I am the first to provide a substantial theoretical test and empirical test of important economic question posed in the principal hypothesis. The theories and the empirical data, in large part, support the hypothesis. The observed, negative effects of the concentration of wealth and its dependence on inherited wealth, on the economic development of the U.S., appear to be pervasive and substantial.
Midwest Business Administration Association (MBAA)
International Academy of Business and Economics (IABE)