The National Academy of Sciences has appointed UB economist Isaac Ehrlich to its Panel on the Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration.

The panel will examine — among many other relevant issues — the implications of immigration on long-term economic growth, as well as the role of human capital in strengthening productivity, fostering structural change and encouraging economic growth and development.

“The panel is comprised of top economists, demographers and fiscal experts from leading academic and research institutions in the U.S.,” Ehrlich says. “The goal of the project is to lay the basis for a more informed and fact-based discussion of the issues surrounding current immigration into the U.S. among a wide range of audiences from policymakers to the general public.”

A SUNY Distinguished Professor, Ehrlich is chair of the Department of Economics, College of Arts and Sciences, and a faculty member in the Department of Finance and Managerial Economics in the School of Management.

His research focuses on the role of human capital and social institutions as direct facilitators of economic growth.

He has presented a thesis crediting the rise of the U.S. as an economic superpower, overtaking the United Kingdom and other European countries, in large measure to its relatively faster human capital formation.

Ehrlich also serves as the Melvin H. Baker Professor of American Enterprise in the School of Management and director of the Center of Excellence on Human Capital, Technology Transfer, and Economic Growth and Development. His professional affiliations include appointments as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Honorary Professor at the University of Orleans, France.

He also is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Human Capital, which is published by the University of Chicago press and headquartered at the Center of Excellence on Human Capital, Technology Transfer, and Economic Growth and Development.

Ehrlich is the author of 80 original and reprinted articles in major refereed journals and collections, including two books. He has been supported by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation and other federal and state agencies, including a major U.S. Agency for International Development grant to study economic development and the role of free enterprise in economic development, and the prestigious NYSTAR award for faculty development.