Javier Espinosa Headshot

Javier Espinosa

Department Chair

Department of Economics
College of Liberal Arts

585-475-5872
Office Location

Javier Espinosa

Department Chair

Department of Economics
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BS, Miami University; MA, Ph.D., University of Maryland at College Park

Bio

Professor Espinosa is an applied microeconomist and has worked on topics in labor economics, public finance and health economics. He is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at RIT. He is a Faculty Affiliate for the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities—a research center that partners with various stakeholders to provide evidence-based poverty solutions, and is currently working with Rochester agencies on an adult mentoring project called Bridges to Success. He is also an Executive Board member of the Healthy Baby Network—a Rochester-based organization with a mission to improve newborn health by supporting vulnerable mothers and families

585-475-5872

Select Scholarship

Journal Paper
Espinosa, Javier and William N. Evans. "Heightened Mortality After the Death of a Spouse: Marriage Protection or Marriage Selection?" Journal of Health Economics 27. 5 (2008): 1326-1342. Print.
Espinosa, Javier, et al. "Project ¡í‰XITO!: Success Through Diversity and Universality for Outcomes Improvement Among Hispanic Home Care Patient." Nursing Outlook 57. 5 (2009): 266-273. Print.
Espinosa, Javier and William N. Evans. "Excise Taxes and the Flight to Quality: Evidence from Scanner Data." Public Finance Review 41. 2 (2013): 147-176. Print.
Espinosa, Javier and William N. Evans. "Maternal Bereavement: The Heightened Morality of Mothers after the Death of a Child." Economics and Human Biology 11. 3 (2013): 371-381. Print.
Book Chapter
Evans, William N. and Javier Espinosa. "Falling Consumption and Worker Displacement in the Cigarette Manufacturing Industry." After Tobacco: What Would Happen If Americans Stopped Smoking? Ed. Peter Bearman, Kathryn Neckerman, and Leslie Wright. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2011. 76-105. Print.

Currently Teaching

ECON-100
0 Credits
This course is designed to introduce new students in the economics program (freshmen and external and internal transfers) to the application of economic analysis in academia, business, government and the not-for-profit sector. Students will be exposed to the research and consulting activities undertaken by academic economists and economic practitioners as well as a discussion of the career outcomes of the alumni of the RIT economics program.
ECON-101
3 Credits
Microeconomics studies the workings of individual markets. That is, it examines the interaction of the demanders of goods and services with the suppliers of those goods and services. It explores how the behavior of consumers (demanders), the behavior of producers (suppliers), and the level of market competition influence market outcomes.
ECON-404
3 Credits
Mathematical Methods: Economics provides students with an introduction to quantitative techniques used in economics such as matrix algebra, one- and multi-variable differential calculus, and unconstrained and constrained optimization. The emphasis of the instruction is on the application of these techniques to fortify and broaden a student's understanding of traditional economic topics like utility maximization, cost minimization, duality in consumer theory, expected utility, and profit maximization.
ECON-510
0 Credits
This course registers the student’s completion of the capstone experience required for economics majors. The requirement can be fulfilled by either presenting a class paper at an approved on-campus or off-campus research conference or submitting a solo-authored or co-authored research paper to a peer-reviewed journal. Economics students experience conducting research and presenting their findings before an audience of their peers and professionals in the field. Students are sponsored by a faculty member, developing their pre-professional skills while learning how to do research first hand. Double-majors who satisfactorily complete a capstone experience in their primary major automatically fulfill the economics capstone experience requirement.
ITDL-498
0 Credits
Co-op in a field related to Liberal Arts (at least 80 hours). Students will apply the accumulated knowledge, theory, and methods of the discipline to problem solving outside of the classroom.

In the News