Board Member Year: 2021

Of Counsel

Eric Robins has both a legal and economics education, earning a J.D., M.A. in Applied Economics and Advanced Certificate in the Regulation of Law and Economics from the University at Buffalo. He has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Michigan. He is a Principal at his own firm, Law Offices of Eric Robins, focusing on real estate investments, corporate/securities law, and immigration. Throughout 2015, he taught regulatory economics and law at the Ukrainian State University of Finance and International Trade (USUFIT) in Kyiv, Ukraine. From 2006 through 2014, Eric was an Associate at Williams & Jensen, PLLC in Washington, D.C., where he undertook economic analysis on equity market structure and analyzed legislative proposals and regulations related to trade associations, corporations, hedge funds, banks and related financial reform issues. Eric has been a member of the National Economists Club (NEC) since 2006, serving as Vice President for Membership (2017-2018), Vice President for Programs (2009), then President (2010), and Chairman (2011). He served on the NEC Board of Directors from 2011 through 2014 receiving an award from the NEC for his service. Throughout his membership, Eric has strongly supported the programs and efforts of the club. He has also served in various leadership roles with the NEC’s affiliated group, the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), including as a NABE Policy Conference Program Committee Chair (2013) and as a Co-Chair of the Finance Roundtable (2012). He also worked to expand the NABE’s outreach to younger economists through the “Get Connected” group (2009). He looks forward to receiving your support for Of Counsel with the NEC.

Board of Governors

Joann M. Weiner is an associate professor of economics and Director of the Master’s in Applied Economics at the George Washington University. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and her B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at GW since September 2006. From 1999 to 2006, Joann lived in Brussels where she taught public economics at the Saint Louis University, worked as a consultant for the European Commission on its study of company tax reform, and was the senior economics correspondent for Tax Notes International. Prior to moving to Brussels, she served as a senior economist in the Office of Tax Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department. She also has written for The Washington Post, Bloomberg Government, AOL’s Politics Daily, and the numerous publications of the non-profit publisher Tax Analysts. She is a former member of the Board of the EC Tax Review. She is a past chairman and board member of Community Tax Aid and former board member of the National Tax Association.

VP Membership

Scholastica (“Gay”) D. Cororaton is a Research Economist at the National Association of REALTORS®, a trade association of more than 1+ million members. She is the lead economist managing the conduct, analysis, and report writing for the monthly Realtors® Confidence Index Survey and the annual Profile of International Real Estate Transactions in the U.S. and similar reports for Florida, Miami, and Raleigh, NC and the Realtors® Land Business Survey. These surveys provide vital statistics about first-time buyers, cash sales, investors, and distressed sales; median days on market; and foreign buyer purchases. She provides the macroeconomic writeup for the quarterly Commercial Real Estate Outlook reports. Using data sourced from surveys and publicly available, she writes blogs on the economy and housing market that appear in NAR’s Economists’ Outlook blog page. She creates the quarterly data Congressional District and State Reports that are used in NAR’s advocacy for homeownership. Under her direction, the Realtor® University Speaker Series has become a monthly event since it started in 2013, featuring speakers who share their rigorous yet practical research on housing market conditions and homeownership. She also edited the October 2017 and May 2018 issues of the REALTOR® University Journal of the Center for Real Estate Studies.

Before immigrating to the United States in 2005, she was Assistant Director for National Planning and Policy Staff at the Philippine’s National Economic Development Authority, the country’s development planning agency. She managed a 10+ person unit that was responsible for macroeconomic monitoring, forecasting, and analysis.

She has an MS in Statistical Science from George Mason University, an MA in Economics and a BS in Business Economics (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines, and an MS in Industrial Economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines.

She is a Certified Business Economist™ (CBE), the certification in business economics and data analytics developed by the National Association for Business Economics. The CBE documents a professional’s accomplishment, experience, abilities, and demonstrates mastery of the body of knowledge critical for a successful career in the field of economics and data analytics.

When not at work, Gay loves spending time with her family enjoying day trips, shopping, and eating out. She is actively involved in the parish ministry of St. Philips Catholic Church in Falls Church, VA.  Gay previously served as NEC VP of Membership.

Treasurer

Katherine Tare is an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, where she works in the Survey Information and Publications Branch of the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions. Primarily, her work focuses on the dissemination and publication of the Employment Cost Index (ECI), Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), and Employee Benefits Survey. Katherine was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the University at Albany, where she received her Bachelors of Science in Economics and Business Administration. Prior to the BLS, Katherine worked at the New York State Department of Labor in Albany, New York, where she used a data driven approach to workforce development and assisted businesses with their hiring needs. Although her work has mainly revolved around labor economics, Katherine’s interests include monetary and fiscal policy, public finance, and behavioral economics. In her spare time Katherine enjoys traveling, practicing yoga, and spending time with her cat Freddy.