Rate My Professor Richard McGrath

Richard McGrath is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Georgia Southern University’s Parker College of Business. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia and his B.A. from Framingham State College. McGrath joined the faculty at the Armstrong Campus of Georgia Southern University in the Fall of 1997, where he has taught microeconomic theory and policy-oriented courses to both undergraduate and graduate students. His teaching philosophy emphasizes helping students recognize the applicability of economic solutions across diverse problems, particularly in evaluating policies for emerging technologies. Over his career, he has directed more than a dozen study abroad programs, contributed to two decades of curriculum development, engaged students in his research projects, and provided academic advising to hundreds of students. McGrath has also served as a Faculty Fellow for the Dean of Students office and previously acted as Faculty Athletics Representative. He is a Past-President and Fellow of the Academy of Economic and Finance.

McGrath’s research specializations include mitigating survey bias and applied microeconomics, with contributions to areas such as tourism destination satisfaction, freight volume constraints, tax incidence, and hotel tax receipts. His publications include “Removing Uncontrollable Factors in Benchmarking Tourism Destination Satisfaction” (Journal of Travel Research, 2022, with Vojtko, V., Štumpf, P., Rašovská, I., and Ryglová, K.), “Destination satisfaction comparison excluding the weather effect” (Current Issues in Tourism, 2022, with Štumpf, P., Vojtko, V., Rašovská, I., Ryglová, K., and Šácha, J.), “Using constraints in freight volume to identify regional needs for roadway infrastructure” (Promet - Traffic and Transportation, 2020, with Alina, J., Leitmanová, I. F., and Petrách, F.), “Tax incidence in a growing economy with a variable savings rate” (Progress in Economics Research, Volume 16, 2010, with Cebula, R. J.), and “Hotel tax receipts and the ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’: A time series intervention seasonal ARIMA model with time-varying variance” (Applied Economics Letters, 2009, with Toma, M. and Payne, J. E.). He has authored or co-authored eight research outputs. McGrath frequently serves as a media expert on economic issues, including gas prices, COVID-19 impacts, tariffs, and consumer spending. Beyond academia, he organizes colleague contributions to support student food security through donations to the Captain’s Cupboard pantry, delivering over 3,700 food items valued at more than $3,600 in 2023.