Stephen Barnes, Ph.D

Director, Kathleen Blanco Public Policy Center

Dr. Barnes is the Director of the Kathleen Blanco Public Policy Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an Associate Professor of economics in the B.I. Moody III College of Business. Dr. Barnes also serves as the independent economist on the Louisiana Revenue Estimating Conference, a forecasting panel that sets income projections used to create the state budget. Prior to his position at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Dr. Barnes spent 10 years in the Department of Economics at LSU including serving as the Director of the Economics & Policy Research Group after completing a PhD in economics at the University of Texas at Austin in 2008.