Academics - Economics Faculty & Staff

Dr. Howland was born in Boston, but raised in many places, including Philadelphia, Long Island, Iowa City, Chicago, Germany, and finally Ithaca, New York, Dr. Howland is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., 1980) and Stanford University (Ph.D., 1988). He has taught in the Economics Department at Wabash College since the Fall of 1988. At Wabash, Dr. Howland has served as Secretary of the Faculty (2004-2010) and, since 2009, as Chair of the Economics Department. Dr. Howland loves to travel: he and his family (spouse Elizabeth Justice, a local attorney, and three daughters) spent a memorable year near Madrid Spain on sabbatical in 1995-96. More recently Dr. Howland has visited Jerusalem, Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, London, Paris, and Provence, France. This summer (August 2011) he is off to Peru with Dr. Eric Wetzel’s Global Health class. Dr. Howland is an avid tennis player; sadly he started playing as an adult and he doesn’t quite make up in enthusiasm, good reflexes, and speed what he lacks in athleticism and muscle memory. Dr. Howland’s approach to German and Spanish is similar, but he plays tennis better than he speaks foreign languages. Dr. Howland lives about ¾ of a mile from campus and walks or bikes to work almost every day.

Much of Dr. Howland’s scholarly work has been devoted to using spreadsheets to improving the teaching of quantitative methods and theoretical models in Economics.Together with Humberto (Bert) Barreto, Dr. Howland coauthored Introductory Econometrics: Using Monte Carlo Simulation with Microsoft Excel (Cambridge University Press, 2006). The numerous Excel workbook and add-ins included in the book (see www.wabash.edu/econometrics ) use Visual Basic macros to teach difficult statistical concepts in ways which give undergraduates a much better chance of actually learning them. Together with another Wabash colleague, Dr. Kealoha Widdows, Drs. Howland and Barreto designed a course and book which teach optimization via Microsoft Excel, again using Visual Basic macros.  

Dr. Howland is especially interested in financial markets and health economics. In fall semester 2009, he and Dr. Peter Mikek taught two sections of the Economics Senior Seminar on the recent Financial Crisis and Dr. Howland has spoken various times on the Financial Crisis. In the fall semester, 2011, Dr. Howland will teach a Health Economics course for the first time; this is one of the reasons he is joining Dr. Wetzel’s class on a trip to observe health delivery and health issues in Peru this August.