The Department of Economics, located in the School of Social Sciences at Rice University, is a center of excellence for research and teaching in economics. Its faculty is committed to advancing knowledge in all areas of theoretical, empirical, and applied economics, to fostering a better understanding of the importance of economic research in the formulation and assessment of public policy, and to training students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in economic theory and empirical methods and their applications in a wide variety of fields.
Following the launch of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics (RISE) and the ensuing expansion of its faculty, the department has established itself as a leading institution for structural empirical microeconomics. The structural approach to empirical economics emphasizes the importance of a rigorous combination of economic theory, econometrics, and data analysis to address substantively important issues in all areas of economics.
Congratulations to the 2026 RISE Awards Winners!
See recipients using the links below.
Undergraduate Awards, MEECON Awards, Ph.D. Awards
The Department of Economics Welcomes Marco Bassetto
The Department of Economics at Rice University is pleased to welcome Marco Bassetto, a leading scholar of macroeconomics and monetary–fiscal interactions, to our faculty. Marco’s research examines how fiscal and monetary policy jointly determine the price level, the consequences of policy rules for wealth distribution and savings, and the political economy forces that shape taxation and public investment. His work includes influential contributions on optimal fiscal policy with heterogeneous agents, sudden inflations, government investment under fiscal rules, and the efficiency and politics of separating capital and ordinary government budgets, with publications in top outlets such as the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, Journal of Monetary Economics, and Quantitative Economics.
Marco joins Rice from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where he has served as a senior research economist and played a central role in advancing the quantitative evaluation of fiscal policy rules and in shaping the intellectual agenda on monetary–fiscal interactions. His expertise strengthens the department’s growing profile in macroeconomics and complements the department’s research strengths, particularly its focus on rigorous integration of theory, econometrics, and data to inform public policy. We are excited to welcome Marco to Houston and look forward to his contributions to our research community, our graduate and undergraduate programs, and our engagement with the broader policy and central banking communities.
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Rice’s Master of Energy Economics powered by deeply rooted Baker Institute and Social Sciences partnership
