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Robert Walker

Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods

Headshot of Robert Walker

Contact Information

Salem Campus

Address
900 State Street
Salem  Oregon  97301
U.S.A.

Portland Center

Address
200 SW Market Street, Suite 101
Portland  Oregon  97201
U.S.A.

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Rochester
  • M.A. University of Rochester
  • B.A. University of Texas at Austin

Biography

One definition of management is the "judicious use of means to accomplish an end." In this information age, the judicious use of information is among the most important skills available to managers without regard to what they manage. Though in prior times the cost of acquiring information was significant, we are entering (or perhaps are in) an age in which the separation of relevant and irrelevant information is among the hardest and most important tasks facing managers. Statistics, as summaries of large amounts of information, provide a crucial tool for informing quality managerial decisions.

Robert W. Walker, Ph. D. is Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods in the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University. Though his Ph.D. is in political science, Professor Walker has taught statistics and research methods to both undergraduate and graduate students at Dartmouth College, Texas A&M University, Washington University in Saint Louis, and Rice University prior to his arrival at Atkinson in addition to courses in political economy. He was a regular instructor in the National Science Foundation's Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models summer program at Washington University in Saint Louis and has regularly taught courses in the analysis of longitudinal data at the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis in the United Kingdom.

His joint work received the Warren Miller Prize for the best published paper in 2009 in Political Analysis, the journal of the Society for Political Methodology and the most cited journal in Political Science during the most recent evaluation period. His published work spans international political economy, political methodology, and the political economy of state and municipal bond markets.

My calendar

Message

Statistics - a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of masses of numerical data - is a crucial tool for modern managers. If used correctly, statistics are efficient methods for uncovering patterns and informing decision making. At the same time, if used incorrectly, statistics can lead us wildly astray.

At Atkinson, the tools of statistics are an important part of an overall training program not as an end, in and of themselves, but as a means to assist managers in making informed decisions that enhance their organizations and facilitate the outcomes that the managers seek to achieve. Statistics are certainly not a silver bullet as they can both inform and deceive. The objective of statistics education at Atkinson is to provide future managers with the foundations to separate useful and harmful statistical information and to appreciate the fine details that distinguish the useful from the harmful across a broad variety of management contexts.

Research Interests

Statistical computing and simulation methods, political economy, public finance, quantitative program evaluation

Publications, Reviews and Research Presentations

Tim Johnson and Robert W. Walker 2018. The Career Advancement of Military Veterans in Recent Cohorts of the U.S. Executive Branch, Public Personnel Management: 47(4): 382–97.

Rizova, P. S., Gupta, S., Maltz, E. N., and Walker, R. W. 2018. Overcoming equivocality on projects in the fuzzy front end: Bringing social networks back in. Technovation: 78(Dec.): 40–55.

Robert W. Walker 2016. On Generalizing Cumulative Ordered Regression Models, Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods 15:2: Article 28.

Kawika Pierson, Fred Thompson, Robert W. Walker. 2016. Property Tax Fairness in Multnomah County, Oregon. California Journal of Politics and Public Policy 8:2.

Itai Sened, MarshallW. Thompson, and Robert W.Walker. 2014. The State, Property Rights and the Middle Class: Empirical Support for an Aristotelian Observation. Indiana Journal of Political Science 14:62–86.

G. Frederick Thompson, and RobertW.Walker. 2014, Special Report: A Tale of Two Cities: Learning from Oregon’s Property Tax Administration, State Tax Notes Nov. 3, 2014:273–84.

Skip Krueger, Robert W. Walker, and Ethan Bernick. 2011. The Intergovernmental Context of Alternative Service Delivery Choices, Publius: The Journal of Federalism: 41(4): 709–33.

Skip Krueger and Robert W. Walker. 2010. Management Practices and State Bond Ratings, Public Budgeting and Finance 30(4): 47–70

Skip Krueger, Christopher V. Hawkins, and Robert W. Walker. 2010. The Cost of Boosterism: Economic Development, Growth Management, and Municipal Bond Ratings, Municipal Finance Journal 31(2):51-75.

Itai Sened, Marshall Thompson, Robert Walker, and Ron Watson. 2010. The Middle Class: A New Conceptual Framework and a Brief Application to the Caucasus. The Caucasus & Globalization Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies 4(1-2): 106–17 (in English and po-russki@i).

Muhammet A. Bas, Curtis S. Signorino, and Robert W. Walker. 2008. Statistical Backwards Induction: A Simple Method for Estimating Recursive Strategic Models. Political Analysis 16(1): 21–40. Received the 2009 Warren Miller Prize for best article in Political Analysis: ISI Impact
Factor: 4.780

Willamette University

Atkinson Graduate School of Management

Salem Campus

Address
900 State Street
Salem Oregon 97301 U.S.A.
Phone
503-370-6167

Portland Center

Address
200 SW Market Street, Suite 101
Portland Oregon 97201 U.S.A.
Phone
971-717-7260