Bernie got his bachelor’s degree in commerce at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and his doctorate in economics at Vanderbilt University. He was a business economist at the Federal Trade Commission and taught at Northwestern University and Michigan State University. From there he went to the Center for Naval Analyses to investigate markets in which the Navy purchased its inputs, like tetracycline and crude oil for the Prepositioned War Reserve Stocks.
He returned to an academic career at Temple University, where in addition to his teaching he studied the pharmaceutical industry and consulted with some of its companies. He then went on to the George Washington University Medical School, where he served as an economist and was on the faculty of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. While at GWU, Bernie consulted with the Food and Drug Administration and taught in the Virginia Tech Graduate Economics Program in Northern Virginia. In 1980 he took over as its Acting Director and was its Associate Director until he retired in 1985.
Until recently, Bernie’s specialty has been the economics of art and craft, with the principal focus on another imperfect market: the high-end craft market. He was involved in researching, writing, lecturing and helping craft artists understand how that market functions.
Recently, media and the government have renewed focus on health-care without addressing or understanding the imperfections of the health-care market or their consequences for patient/consumers. Bernie has since renewed his focus on health-care markets, wanting to use his understanding of and experience with the health-care system to help patient/consumers get the health-care services they want at a price they can afford.
Even in his elder years, he’s still working away.
Bernie on Writing (analog, not digital!)
Video and interview by GraceCamblosMedia
Perspectives of an Immortal Economist 