Featured Speaker ~ Dennis Hoffman

Dennis L. Hoffman is a Professor of Economics at Arizona State University where he has published numerous academic articles and a book in the area of macroeconomics and econometrics.  He has received both teaching and research awards from ASU.  He received the Distinguished Faculty Research Award in 1992 and has held the title of Dean’s Council of 100 Distinguished Scholar since 1996.  He served as a visiting research scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during the summer of 1996.  In 1997, Dr. Hoffman was named the Arizona Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation. 

In addition to his academic appointment, Dr. Hoffman has held several administrative appointments; Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, 1998-2004, Associate Dean for Research; 2004-2008, and Director of the Seidman Research Institute, 2004-present. Dr. Hoffman is also director of ASU’s Office of the University Economist, 2005-present. 

In his role in the Seidman Institute – as University Economist, Dr Hoffman is responsible for the production of policy white papers with regional, education, fiscal, and labor market emphasis. This work is supported directly by the Office of University President Michael Crow.   In addition, Seidman serves as the applied contract research arm of the W. P. Carey School averaging approximately $800,000 per annum in external research contracts meeting the needs of government, community and business clients primarily in the southwest. This activity is summarized at https://seidmaninstitute.com/  Seidman is also responsible for responding to the majority of business/economic media inquiries received by the university and has considerably connections with both local and national media outlets. 

Dr. Hoffman's sponsored project efforts include the construction and maintenance of the tax revenue forecasting model used by the Executive Budget Office of the State of Arizona each year since 1982 – serving 8 different Governors. Dr. Hoffman headed groups of economists who measured the economic impact of several fiscal initiatives for the State of Arizona in 1989 and in 1990. The 1989 study was commissioned by Governor Mofford as an input to fiscal initiatives that were contained in her State of the State speech in 1989. The 1990 study was requested by the Joint Select Committee on Fiscal Reform of the Arizona Legislature. In 1996 Dr. Hoffman was appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Economic Incentives of the Arizona Legislature. He also served as technical advisor for Governor Napolitano’s citizen’s fiscal reform committee (2004).  At the Governor’s request Dr. Hoffman served on the Board of the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) from 2012-2017.

As Director of the Seidman Research Institute, Dr. Hoffman has closely studied the regional economy in Arizona.  His extensive experience with the state and local economy positions him for his current research interests that include defining and measuring the role of research universities in regional development, quantifying the value of education investments to the economic prosperity of a region, and measuring the impact of various fiscal initiatives on regional development. These current research interests align with Dr. Hoffman’s administrative assignment, Director of the Office of the University Economist, undertaken as a strategic university initiative at the direction of Arizona State University President Michael Crow. Dr. Hoffman is the faculty director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research where the he directs the Productivity and Prosperity Project http://economist.asu.edu