Professor Lawrence C. Marsh
Lawrence C. Marsh, PhD is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, Provost of Profology, and a Board Member of Avila University, with over 50 years of experience in econometrics, statistics, and economic policy. He is an American Economist, Author, and Educator known for developing the money flow paradigm, a framework that explains how distortions in money flow between Wall Street and Main Street drive economic inefficiency, instability, and inequality.
Larry is the author of Optimal Money Flow: A New Vision on How a Dynamic-Growth Economy Can Work for Everyone and Money Flow in a Dynamic Economy, published by Avila University Press. His money flow paradigm proposes that the free enterprise system inherently directs money to the top of the wealth pyramid, and that the government must redirect sufficient money flow from the top to the bottom to maximize employment, economic growth, and efficient resource allocation.
He advocates for “My America” Federal Reserve bank accounts for every American, which would allow the Fed to inject stimulus money directly to consumers as an alternative to manipulating interest rates on Wall Street. Read Optimal Money Flow.
Larry taught graduate and undergraduate economics at Notre Dame for 30 years beginning in 1975, delivering several thousand lectures in statistics, econometrics, mathematical economics, and microeconomic theory. He served as the Director of Notre Dame’s PhD program in economics for 13 years and served on over 80 PhD dissertation committees, mentoring students who went on to hold positions in leading central banks and as key government advisors worldwide.
Between August 1983 and June 1996, Larry served as the Director of Graduate Studies in Economics at Notre Dame. In 1990, he cofounded the Midwest Econometrics Group (MEG) with Pravin Trivedi of Indiana University at Bloomington and Peter Schmidt of Michigan State University. He directed MEG for 15 years, organizing annual conferences that have continued for over three decades, bringing researchers from around the world to major universities and Federal Reserve Banks in the Midwest.
In 2010, Larry served as Visiting Professor of Econometrics and Statistics in the MBA program at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Between 2016 and 2017, he taught statistics and research methods in the Psychology Department at Avila University in Kansas City, where he currently serves on the Avila University Board of Trustees.
Larry has contributed to hundreds of publications, including articles in the Journal of Econometrics, Marketing Science, Statistics in Medicine, and many other professional journals, as well as numerous newspaper columns, book chapters, and books. His scholarly work has garnered over 1,350 citations on Google Scholar. His research spans Bayesian econometrics, spline regression models, bootstrap distributions, neural networks, dynamic optimization, housing markets, and public policy.
His books include Spline Regression Models, published by SAGE in 2002 and translated into Chinese in 2018, and Brain on Fire: Confronting the Burning Issues of Today … and Tomorrow, a collection of 81 columns he wrote as an independent Midwest Voices columnist for The Kansas City Star. For Optimal Money Flow, Larry forgoes author royalties and donates the entire book price to student scholarships when purchased through Avila University Press.
Prior to his academic career, Larry served as a Specialist Five in the U.S. Army from March 1969 to December 1970, stationed at Battalion Headquarters, Basic Training Unit, Fort Knox, Kentucky, and at Support Command Headquarters, United States Army, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. After his military service, he worked at the Bendix Corporation’s Aerospace Division as a subcontract administrator and contract personnel administrator on the Apollo Moon Landings Mission, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, and a number of classified military projects.
Between August 2005 and September 2006, Larry served as Statistical Design Strategist and Head of Analytics for Banner Targeting at Adknowledge, an internet advertising company, where he devised algorithms that sent billions of banner ads to websites across the internet.
Larry earned his PhD in Economics in 1976 from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business. He earned his Master’s Degree of Arts in Economics from Michigan State University and his Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in Economics in 1967 from The College of Wooster in Ohio. He attended The Lawrenceville School, a prestigious preparatory school near Princeton, New Jersey.
In teaching, Larry won the James A. Burns Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 1990–1991 and was an O’Malley Award Nominee for Undergraduate Teaching in 1995–1996. In 2002–2003, he was selected as a Kaneb Faculty Teaching Fellow for Excellence in Teaching. He also served as an independent Midwest Voices columnist for The Kansas City Star between January 2009 and 2012, and publishes a monthly Money Flow Newsletter on economic policy. He has presented at the American Economic Association Conference and the Midwest Economics Association meeting.
Listen to How to Deal With Our Economic Instability on the Killing Time Podcast. Watch Optimal Money Flow (by Lawrence C. Marsh) Book and Stop Inflation without Causing a Recession.
Larry married Janet K. Marsh in 1969, who later served as City Editor of The Ypsilanti Press, The Niles Daily Star, and The South Bend Tribune before becoming Assistant Managing Editor at The South Bend Tribune. They lived in South Bend, Indiana, from 1975 until 2005, when they moved in retirement to Kansas City, Missouri.
Visit his LinkedIn profile, Notre Dame Homepage, Optimal Money Flow Website, Google Scholar page, and Goodreads page. Follow him on Academia, Facebook, and X.