[18 March 2002]
Prof Roberto S. Mariano Appointed New Dean at Singapore Management University

University of Pennsylvania's Professor of Economics and Statistics to Spearhead SMU's School of Economics & Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University (SMU) is pleased to announce that Prof Roberto S Mariano, Professor of Economics and Statistics at the School of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, will be appointed Dean, School of Economics and Social Sciences of SMU as at 1 July 2002. The principal disciplines of the new School will include Economics, Sociology, Political Science and Psychology.

With an illustrious career spanning three decades, Prof Mariano brings with him a wealth of experience in the corporate and public sectors as well as in academia. He has been with the Economics faculty of the University of Pennsylvania since 1971 and he has held visiting positions in various academic institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He has authored numerous research papers and books on econometric methodology and applications and has served on the editorial board of several international professional journals. He was the principal investigator in research projects funded by the United Nations, U.S. National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Agriculture, to name a few. With a focus on econometric modeling for forecasting and policy analysis, he has been a consultant to various central banks, government ministries, and stock exchanges in Asia as well as private companies in Asia and the U.S.

In Singapore, he worked on a research project for the Ministry of Manpower entitled "Macroeconometric Sectoral Modeling for Manpower Planning in Singapore" from March 2000 - March 2002 where he was the principal investigator with Nobel Laureate Lawrence R. Klein. He is currently working on a research project for the Wharton-SMU Research Center on "A Predictive Model of Currency Crises in Southeast Asia - A Markov Chain Approach".

Within the region, he was recently principal investigator of two major research projects, namely one for Bangko Sentral ng Pilipina (the Central Bank of the Philippines) on "Macromodeling for Inflation Targeting in the Philippines" and another for Bank Negara Malaysia (the Central Bank of Malaysia) on "Macroeconometric Modeling for Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Malaysia".

Prof Mariano's appointment will coincide with the commencement of the Bachelor of Science (Economics) undergraduate degree programme in August 2002, which was five times oversubscribed in the early admissions exercise in January this year, attracting 282 applications for 50 places.

SMU conducts two rounds of admissions exercises each year. The regular admissions exercise for SMU's three undergraduate programmes is currently in progress, of which the closing date is 8 April 2002.