Raymond Lombra
{{Short description|American economist}}
Raymond Eugene "Ray" Lombra (born 1946 in Hamden, Connecticut){{cite web | url=http://viaf.org/viaf/22362627/#Lombra,_Raymond_E. | title=Raymond Lombra | work=VIAF | accessdate=7 November 2015}} is an American economist and professor at Penn State University, where he is also the senior advisor to the Dean.
Education
Lombra graduated from Providence College in 1967 with a BA in economics. He went on to graduate from Penn State in 1968 with a master's degree, and received his PhD there in 1971.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FfIIAAAACAAJ | title=An Introduction to Financial Markets and Institutions | publisher=South-Western/Thomson Learning | author=Burton, Maureen | year=2002}}
Career
Lombra worked as a senior staff economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System before joining the faculty at Penn State in 1977.{{cite web | url=http://www.la.psu.edu/people/rl3 | title=Raymond Lombra | work=Penn State | accessdate=7 November 2015}} He became Penn State's associate dean in 1992.
Research
Lombra has published over 75 scholarly articles and six books. In 1990, Americans for Common Cents enlisted Lombra to produce evidence in support of continuing to make the U.S. penny. He subsequently testified before the Senate Banking Committee that eliminating the penny would “impose a significant and regressive rounding ‘tax’ on the American public”.{{cite web | url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/penny-dreadful | title=Penny Dreadful | work=New Yorker | date=31 March 2008 | accessdate=7 November 2015 | author=Owen, David}} He has also said that eliminating the penny would have especially adverse effects on people without checking accounts.{{cite web | url=http://lubbockonline.com/stories/121700/bus_121700014.shtml#.Vj6EI66rSCQ | title=Pitching pennies? Economist says no | work=Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | date=17 December 2000 | accessdate=7 November 2015 | agency=Associated Press}} He later elaborated on these claims in a 2001 paper he published in the Eastern Economic Journal which stated that the direct and indirect effects of eliminating the penny would be “no less than $1.5 billion over five years and $2.5 billion over a decade”.{{cite journal | url=http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume27/V27N4P433_442.pdf | title=Eliminating the Penny from the U.S. Coinage System: An Economic Analysis | author=Lombra, Raymond | journal=Eastern Economic Journal | year=2001 | volume=27 | issue=4 | pages=433–442}}
Personal life
Lombra and his wife, Bobbi, enjoy drinking fine wine and filling the resulting empty bottles with pennies.{{cite web | url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116360150549923901 | title=Managing Change: Is the Penny Worth Keeping? | work=Wall Street Journal | date=17 November 2006 | accessdate=7 November 2015}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lombra, Raymond Eugene}}
Category:People from Hamden, Connecticut
Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty
Category:Providence College alumni
Category:Pennsylvania State University alumni