Professor Elia Kacapyr's expertise: Macro economic forecasts, GDP, interest rates and inflation. Documentation shows the GDP as deficient as a measure of the standard of living or quality of life, Kacapyr's recent research (which includes 45 years of data) traces the indexes of "well being" combining economic data with data on the environment, health, society and technology, to come up with one number for the Index of American Progress. Other work on well being includes a "happiness" or "life satisfaction" index, on which Latin Americans typically come in high and former Soviet Republics typically come in with low numbers. Kacapyr's extensive work on happiness shows that money does not necessarily make people happy. His work also includes corruption and how this affects the overall economy. A columnist for the Ithaca journal, Kacapyr monitors the economy of Tompkins County, New York with a proprietary index since 1985.
Research Focus
- Macroeconomics
- Econometrics
- Forecasting
Education
BA, University of Maryland, 1978
Ph.D., Georgia State University, 1985