Scott Baier to lead Clemson business school economics department

Clemson University has picked a highly regarded economics faculty member as interim chair of the John E. Walker Department of Economics. Scott Baier, director of the BB&T Center for Education and Policy Studies at Clemson, will begin his new role July 1.

“I am pleased and honored that Scott has accepted my invitation and challenge to become the interim chair of our economics department,” said Bobby McCormick, business school dean. “He brings a proven record as a teacher, researcher and high-level adviser in the federal government. We are fortunate to have him leading the department.”Baier succeeds Raymond “Skip” Sauer, who elected to return to being a full-time professor and researcher after 12 years as department chair.

Clemson’s Scott Baier has been chosen to be interim chair of the university’s economics department.

Baier has been an economics faculty member at Clemson for 15 years and was a finance and economics department faculty member at the University of Notre Dame prior to that. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bowling Green State University before earning his Ph.D. at Michigan State University.

In addition to his significant teaching and research accomplishments, Baier was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta and was a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2007 to 2008. In that role he provided economic analyses of current events, pending legislation and assisted with the production of the Economic Report for the U.S. president. More recently, he has served as a consultant to the Congressional Budget Office and the United States International Trade Commission.

“I see my primary role as that of an information aggregator, to understand the vision of our well-recognized economics faculty and meld that with the vision the new business school. The changes taking place present opportunities for the faculty to leverage our strengths in the classroom and the on the frontiers of research,” Baier said.

Baier’s award-winning research focuses on international trade, and economic growth and development.