Brian Chezum

In life, there are seminal moments that unexpectedly define the path our lives lead.  So it was for Dr. Chezum when one day as a first year student, during football practice a coach asked what he was planning on taking for courses in the coming semester.  Responding with uncertainty, the coach who turned out to be the chair of the economics program convinced him to take an economics course.  It was during this course that Dr. Chezum first found a true passion for learning.  The coach ultimately became a friend and mentor and it was this relationship that led Dr. Chezum to his chosen career as a professor of economics at a selective liberal arts college.  It was his own time studying in a similar institution which led Dr. Chezum to understand that it is not what he as a professor or the student does individually but the things professors and students do together that makes the difference.

With a passion for both teaching and research, Dr. Chezum studies markets in which information conflicts between buyers and sellers exist.  Consider the purchase of a used car, the seller knows the complete history of the car, how it was driven any accidents, the service record and etc.  The buyer knows only that the car is for sale.  This conflict between buyers and sellers has potentially severe consequences, leading the best used car to leave the market and in the extreme may cause the market to disappear.  Dr. Chezum uses data generated by the thoroughbred racehorse market to examine conflicts of this nature and ask more interestingly how the market overcomes such problems.