TRG Faculty
Faculty
Brief Bios
Ken Casavant
Professor
Ken is a Professor in the School of Economic Sciences and a nationally renowned transportation economist, after spending 35 years at Washington State University. He has received numerous teaching, research and service awards throughout his tenure at Washington State University, including recipient of the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute 2006, the "Washington State University Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award" 2004 and being named “Distinguished Scholar” by the Western Agricultural Economics Association in 2003. Ken also also serves as the Faculty Athletic Representative to the President for Washington State University.
Eric Jessup
Assistant Professor
Eric is an Assistant Professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. He received his bachelor and masters degrees in Agricultural Economics at the University of Kentucky and Ph.D. at Washington State University. Prior to joining the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University, he spent four years with the International Risk Management Group at American Express, Inc. Eric's current research focus includes transportation economics, network modeling, and freight transportation logistics. His research is frequently published in the Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Forum and the Western Planner.
Fred Inaba
Associate Professor
Fred is a Professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. His interest and research in freight transportation economics has focused on the effects of regulatory and/or policy reforms on both shippers and carriers in freight markets. In particular, he has examined how rates between rail and motor carrier traffic were altered after deregulation of rail rates, how grain shippers' demand for rail, truck, and barge services were influenced by public investment in highway and water transportation infrastructure, how motor carriers responded to relaxation of entry restrictions in motor freight markets, and how shippers responded to policy reforms that ended regulated ocean liner rates in favor of shipper-carrier negotiated rates. In each of these analyses the behavior of the agent is modeled to evaluate the underlying policy or regulatory environment change. The model is then subject to empirical validation using actual observations of agents' actions.
Jia Yan
Assistant Professor
Jia Yan is an assistant professor of Economics at Washington State University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from University of California at Irvine. Before joining Washington State University in 2007, he taught in Faculty of Business of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Yan's research covers Transportation Economics, Applied Microeconomics, and Applied Econometrics. He has published his papers in such journal as Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, Econometrica, Journal of Urban Economics, and Transportation Research Record. His Ph.D. dissertation won the dissertation award of the Transport and Public Utility Group of the American Economic Association in 2003. He also won the research excellence award of the Faculty of Business of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2006.