Samuel Absher

Samuel Absher
Associate Economist
Santa Monica Office

Education

B.A. in economics, University of Oklahoma; Ph.D. in economics, University of Oklahoma

Overview

Sam R. Absher is an associate economist at the RAND Corporation. He uses applied economics to study a wide range of questions: What effect did the Rose Revolution have on the economics and politics of Georgia? What role did cell phones really play in Libya’s 2011 “Twitter Revolution”? What can US policymakers do to help American firms "win" the 5G race? His current work focuses on the U.S. military's basic pay tables and their relationship to domestic labor markets, the adequacy of the U.S. Army's Basic Allowance for Housing in the face of shifting housing markets, and the cost-effectiveness of the Army's marketing portfolio on recruitment. He’s also a faculty member at Pardee RAND Graduate School where he teaches cost benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis. Before joining RAND, Absher was a postdoctoral researcher at the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. He has a Ph.D. and B.A. in economics from the University of Oklahoma.

Selected Publications

Absher, Sam R., Kevin Grier, Robin Grier, "The economic consequences of durable left-populism in Latin America," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 177(1), 2020

Absher, Sam R., Kevin Grier, and Bob Lawson, "You say you want a (Rose) Revolution? The effects of Georgia's 2004 market reforms.," Economics of Transition & Institutional Change, 27(1), 2018

Publications