Rate My Professor Patrick Warren

Patrick Warren is a Professor of Economics in the John E. Walker Department of Economics at Clemson University’s Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business, positions he has held since 2008, progressing from Assistant Professor (2008-2014) to Associate Professor (2014-2022) and full Professor (2022-present). He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 and a B.A.S. magna cum laude in Philosophy, Math, and Rhetoric from the University of South Carolina Honors College in 2001. Since 2020, he has served as Faculty Director of the Media Forensics Hub, which he co-founded in 2017 with Darren Linvill to study and counter online deception; their work has exposed over three million tweets from Russian Internet Research Agency trolls, informed congressional hearings on social media disinformation, and developed tools like the Spot the Troll quiz game. Warren’s research interests include political economy, the economics of organizations, regulatory persistence, retirement plan design, and coordinated information operations. He has held visiting appointments as Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 2016 and Adjunct Economist at the RAND Corporation in 2013.

Warren’s scholarly contributions appear in leading journals such as the Journal of Law and Economics, PNAS Nexus, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and Journal of Public Economics. Key publications include “Firearms and Lynching” with Michael D. Makowsky (Journal of Law and Economics, 2023); “The Spot the Troll Quiz Game Increases Accuracy in Discerning Between Real and Inauthentic Social Media Accounts” with Jeff Lees, John Banas, Darren Linvill, and Patrick Meirick (PNAS Nexus, 2023); “Talking to Trolls—How Users Respond to a Coordinated Information Operation and Why They’re So Supportive” with Darren Linvill and Amanda Moore (Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2022); “Troll Factories: Manufacturing Specialized Disinformation on Twitter” with Darren Linvill (Journal of Political Communication, 2020); and “An Equilibrium Theory of Retirement Plan Design” with Ryan Bubb (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2020). He received the College of Business Interdisciplinary Research Award (2019), President’s Leadership Institute fellowship (2017), National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2004), and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (1999). Warren has served as Associate Editor of the Public Finance Review (2017-2020), on the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics board (2014-2016), Faculty Senate representative for the College of Business since 2017, and various university committees including the Honors College Oversight Board and University Research Grants Committee.