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Economists

Pia M. Orrenius

Vice President and Senior Economist
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Pia Orrenius

Pia Orrenius is a labor economist, working on regional economic growth and demographic change. She manages the regional and microeconomics group in the Dallas Fed Research Department, is executive editor of the publication Southwest Economy and co-edited Ten Gallon Economy: Sizing up Economic Growth in Texas (2015, Palgrave MacMillan).

Her academic research focuses on the labor market impacts of immigration, unauthorized immigration and U.S. immigration policy. She is coauthor of the book Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization (2010, AEI Press).

Orrenius is affiliated with several academic institutions. She is research fellow at the Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs and the Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center at Southern Methodist University and at the IZA Institute of Labor in Bonn, Germany, as well as adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Orrenius was senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President, Washington D.C., in 2004–05, where she advised the Bush administration on labor, health and immigration issues.

She holds a PhD in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles and bachelor degrees in economics and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign.

Curriculum Vitae
Employment
  • Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Research Department, 1999–present
  • Baylor University, Adjunct Professor, 2008–21
  • President's Council of Economic Advisers, 2004–05, Senior Economist
Academic Affiliations
  • Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C.
  • Tower Center Senior Fellow, Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at Southern Methodist University
  • Research Fellow, IZA Institute of Labor in Bonn, Germany
  • Senior Fellow, Mission Foods Texas–Mexico Center at Southern Methodist University
  • Fellow, Transatlantic Forum on Migration and Integration, German Marshall Fund
Education
  • University of California at Los Angeles
    PhD in economics, 1999
  • University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, Illinois
    BA in economics, 1990 (magna cum laude)
    BA in Spanish, 1990
Editorial Boards
  • Journal of Human Resources
  • Southern Economic Journal
  • International Migration Review
  • IZA Journal of Migration
Professional Service
Journal Publications
Books and Edited Volumes
  • Forging a New Path in North American Trade and Immigration, Pia M. Orrenius, Jesus Cañas and Michael Weiss, eds., Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2021.
  • NAFTA at 20: Effects on the North American Market, Pia M. Orrenius, Jesus Cañas and Michael Weiss, eds., Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2017.
  • Ten-Gallon Economy: Sizing up Texas’ Economic Growth, Pia M. Orrenius, Jesus Cañas and Michael Weiss, eds. Palgrave MacMillan, 2015.
  • Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, James F. Hollifield, Philip L. Martin and Pia M. Orrenius, eds., Stanford University Press, 2014.
  • Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization, with Madeline Zavodny, American Enterprise Institute, 2010.
  • Migration, Trade and Development: Conference Proceedings, James Hollifield, Pia Orrenius and Thomas Osang, eds., Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2007.
Essays, Book Chapters and Reports
Dallas Fed Publications
Working Papers