“As opposed to debating me on the merits of my report, they are instead attacking me blindly, without even talking to me,” Thornberg said. Thornberg was a tenure-track professor at Clemson University and a senior economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast, another UC research center focused on economic analysis, before he founded Beacon Economics in 2006. “I insist on 100% control over our findings, period.” Thornberg defended the center’s research record and said the UC faculty members were mobilized by the Service Employees International Union, which represents fast-food workers and others, because the union disagrees with the empirical results of his research. The letter, submitted Tuesday to UC regents, urges the university system to investigate its relationship with the center. The firm produces economic research reports for the university but also pays UC Riverside royalty fees to publish its own reports using the center’s name.Ī letter signed by more than 100 faculty members and graduate students from across the UC system argues that the arrangement allows corporations and industry groups to sponsor research and use the findings to advance their interests without academic oversight or transparency. The research center, known as the UC Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development, is not operated by university faculty and is instead run by private consulting company Beacon Economics. Some University of California faculty members are raising the alarm about a research center affiliated with UC Riverside that they say uses corporate funding for reports “attacking proposals to improve the lives of working Californians.”
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