Dr. George William Davis

Overview

Biography

Will Davis grew up in Birmingham Alabama where he received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He earned his master's degree and Ph.D. in Economics from Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Will joined the Department of Agricultural Economics at Mississippi State University in August of 2020. Will is a health economist with extensive experience evaluating the effects of government policies like universal free school meals and SNAP on the health outcomes of individuals and communities. He has also worked on more methodologically focused topics such as how to measure latent traits like food insecurity, location-specific health, and country-level human development using Bayesian statistical models. Will's projects include work with the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the USDA's Economic Research Service, the Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Education, Head Start employees and parents in coastal Mississippi, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Will's published papers include articles in Health Economics, the Southern Economic Journal, Education Finance and Policy, and the Journal of Development Economics. Will also works on topics in Data Science and Generative AI as a member of the University Data Science Committee.

Education

• Georgia State University, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Economics
• Georgia State University, Master of Arts (M.A.) , Economics
• University of Alabama at Birmingham, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) , Economics

Research/Extension Interests

Government nutrition assistance programs
School meals
Adult and child health
Health disparities
Rural development
Area-level health
Bayesian statistical measurement
Latent factor measurement

Teaching Interests

Agricultural economics
Microeconomics
Health economics
Econometrics
Quantitative methods

Websites

• Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station
• Will Davis Economics