Personal Summary

Dr. Robert (Tino) Sonora is a Clinical Professor of Finance. Currently he is also an Adjunct Professor of Economics and Forest Economics at the University of Montana. Before moving to the College of Business he was Associate Director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research also at the University of Montana between 2019 and 2023. Between 2005 and 2018 Dr. Sonora was Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of Economics at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, CO and from 1998-2005 he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD from The Ohio State University and has a MA in Economics from Ohio State; a MA in International Economics from the University of Essex in the UK, and a BA in Economics from Connecticut College. His current research interests are: policy and behavior; income inequality, financial markets and sustainability; international finance; economic growth; and stock index composition.

In addition to being in the College of Business at  the University of Montana, Dr. Sonora is a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Zagreb in Croatia, where he also been a Visiting Professor of Economics. He twice was a Fulbright recipient at the Universtity of Zagreb.  His other international experience includes lectures at various universities in Mexico, Spain, Germany, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia.

His publications can be found in the International Economic Review, North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Energy Economics, Review of Financial Economics, Review of Developement Economics, Contemporary Economic Policy, among others. He is also the author of testbanks for Macroeconomics, (Charles Jones, WW Norton Press) and Money, Banking, and Financial Institutions (Laurence Ball, Worth Publishers) . He is Co-Editor of the Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business and has refereed for over 30 academic journals, including: Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking; Journal of International Money and Finance; Journal of Empirical Finance; Cogent Economics and Finance; and Journal of Macroeconomics; and reviewed textbooks for McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Cengage, Cambridge UP, Wiley Press, WW Norton and others. 

Outside of academia, he has been on the Board of Directors of the Region 9 Development District in Colorado, a member of the Southern Ute Tribe's CEDS advisory board; the Regional Data Planning Committee of the Four Corners Regional Economic Consortium; and the Colorado Business Economic Outlook Committee at CU-Boulder. He has written numerous articles for the Montana Business Quarterly, been a guest on MT PBS, KVGO, the Northern Broadcast System, KSUT and MTPR, and had monthly economics column at The Durango Herald.
 

Education

PhD Economics: The Ohio State University
MA Economics: The Ohio State University
MA International Economics: University of Essex
BA Economics: Connecticut College
 

Courses Taught

Corporate finance, Applied Econometrics and Time Series/Forecasting, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Money and Financial Institutions/Banking, Financial Economics, International Economics: Finance and Trade, Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, International Business/Financial Management,  Public Economics, Monetary and Fiscal Policy, Transition Economics, Growth and Development

Teaching Experience

Visiting Instructor, Ohio Wesleyan University, 1997-98
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Texas-Arlington, 1998 - 2005
Assistant/Associate/Professor, Department of Economics, Fort Lewis College, CO 2005-18
Adjunct Professor of Economics, College of Forestry and College of Business, University of Montana, 2021-2023
 

Research Interests

International finance, international trade, intranational macroeconomics, income inequality, policy effectiveness, financial economics, economic growth, transition economics, development economics

Selected Publications

"Price Level Convergence Among United States Cities,'' (with S. Cecchetti and N. C. Mark), International Economic Review, 43(4), 2002, doi.org/10.1111/1468-2354.t01-1-00049
"International Price Volatility: Evidence from U.S. and Mexican Cities'' (with C. A. Depken), North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 13, 2002, doi.org/10.1016/S1062-9408(02)00077-3
"CPI Convergence Between Mexican Cities", Review of Development Economics, 9(3), 2005, doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2005.00281.x
"Bivariate Relative City Price Convergence in the United States: 1918-1997'',  Review of Financial Economics, 17, 2008, doi.org/10.1016/j.rfe.2007.02.010
"City Relative Price Convergence in the U.S. with a Structural Break(s)'',  Applied Financial Economics Letters, 16(9), 2009, doi.org/10.1080/17446540802298035
"Public Debt and Economic Growth Conundrum: Nonlinearity and Intertemporal Relationship'', (with V. Arcabic, J. Lee, and J. Tica), Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, 22(1), 2018, 10.1515/snde-2016-0086
"A Panel Analysis of Income Inequality and Energy Use'', Contemporary Economic Policy, 40(1), 2022, https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12550
"Estimates of a `Pandemic Taylor Rule' Loss Function'', Applied Economics Letters,  30(15), 2023, doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2022.2089619

Publications

Google Scholar

ResearchGate

ORCID

Affiliations

College of Business, University of Montana
Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb

Specialized Skills

Econometrics: time series, cross sectional, panel, etc.

Professional Experience

Associate Director, Bureau fo Business and Economics Research, University of Montana (2019-23)

Member: American Economic Association, Western Economic Association, Southern Economic Association, American Society of Hispanic Economists, Euro Area Business Cycle Network, International Atlantic Economic Society, Korean American Economic Association

Co-Editor: Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business

International Experience

Visiting Scholar: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Visiting Professor: University of Guadalajara, Mexico; University of Zagreb, Croatia

Lectures: Universities of Pula, Osijek, Rijeka, Zadar, Dubrovnik (Croatia); University of Ljubljana (Slovenia); Alpen-Adria-Universitat Klagenfurt (Austria); Friederich-Alexander Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Erlangen (Germany); Universidad Loyola Andulucia, Cordoba (Spain); Institute of Public Finance, Zagreb  (Croatia);  Innovation Institute, Zubak Executive Management Program, Senj, (Croatia); University of Guadalajara (Mexico)

Referee: Croatian Science Foundation

Fulbright Specialist: University of Zagreb (2010)
Fulbright Scholar: University of Zagreb (2013)

Hobbies

All things cycling, alpine skiing, guitar, oenology, travelling