Faculty Spotlight
The Executive MBA program is very pleased to announce that William Neilson has joined our core faculty group this year. Bill is a professor of economics and holds the J. Fred Holly Chair of Excellence in Economics. He teaches economics in both the Executive and Full-Time MBA programs. In addition, he teaches doctoral courses in game theory and mathematical economics, as well as undergraduate courses in labor and personnel economics.
Bill is an economic theorist, using mathematical tools to answer questions relevant to economics. His primary research areas include game theory, which is the study of interactions between small numbers of individuals or firms, and behavior toward risk. He also works on issues in pricing, collusion, social networks, education, and law.
Bill has published 40 papers in academic journals and two textbooks, the most recent being Personnel Economics, which concerns how compensation schemes can be used to motivate workers, maximize profit, and attract the right applicant pool. He still writes textbooks, but no longer sells them to the big publishing houses, preferring instead to make them freely available on the Web. He has served as editor for the academic journal Economic Inquiry and currently serves on the editorial boards of four other economics journals.
Bill earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and his bachelor’s degree in both mathematics and economics from Rice University. He joined the University of Tennessee faculty in 2006 after teaching at Texas A&M University for 18 years.