Our Story
Sometimes we make life happen, other times life happens to us. In 2014, Ryan Wessel was an economics PhD student at Arizona State University working with Nobel Prize winner Edward Prescott. One day, a state agency reached out to Ryan for help because they did not have the in-house expertise needed to analyze a very large, very complex data set. Ryan was able to develop a scripting program that transformed over 1 billion data points into an easy to read report. The work proved interesting and profitable, and Independent Economist was born!
Today, Independent Economist’s list of clients include federal and state agencies, businesses, universities, churches, and law firms.
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Meet the expert…
Principal Economist
Ryan Wessel, PhD
Dr. Wessel holds a PhD in economics and an MBA with an emphasis in finance. He has published in many respected academic journals, including two articles co-authored with a Nobel Prize winning economist. Dr. Wessel has worked with the Federal Reserve to understand how the digitization of currency impacts monetary policy, helped states meet EPA emissions requirements and navigate the complexity of EPA reporting, been a corporate economist for a multi-billion dollar corporation, worked with universities to transform data into decisions, and taught thousands of students. His clear and personable style comes across as calm and trustworthy in the boardroom and the courtroom.
Education
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PhD - Economics, 2017
MBA - Finance, 2009
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
B.S. - Astrophysics, 2006 cum laude
Representative Publications
“Policing the Poor: The impact of vehicle emissions inspection programs across income,” Transportation Research Part D 78 (2020) 102207
“Monetary Policy with 100 Percent Reserve Banking” with Edward C. Prescott, National Bureau of Economic Research, Number 22431, July 2016. Press coverage videos available through the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis at www.minneapolisfed.org.