Michael Sacks Receives Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor at Clarkson University

March 30, 2026

Clarkson University announces that Michael Sacks has been awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor of economics and financial studies in the Reh School of Business.

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Headshot, Michael Sacks

Sacks teaches principles of macroeconomics, industrial and supply chain economics, and a Clarkson University MBA program course called applied economics. He has also taught the economics of innovation.

His research spans political economy, public economics, industrial organization, and game theory, with a focus on how heterogeneity, identity, and strategic incentives shape economic behavior in both market and non-market settings. He studies public and club goods, identity-based communities, networks, platforms, and social interactions, with particular emphasis on how institutional structures and individual motivations interact to produce outcomes that are often unintuitive yet policy-relevant. His recent work examines how repeated social interactions shape economic outcomes.

Sacks’s scholarship has been published in leading journals, including The Economic Journal, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Public Choice, and Journal of Management Information Systems.

His Clarkson honors include Outstanding New Teacher Award (2023), MBA Professor of the Year Award (2023-24) and David D. Reh School of Business Service Excellence Award (2025).

Sacks holds a B.S. in economics from Towson University, an M.A. in mathematical behavioral sciences from the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Irvine.

Clarkson University is a proven leader in technological education, research, innovation and sustainable economic development. With its main campus in Potsdam, N.Y., and additional graduate program and research facilities in the Capital Region and Hudson Valley, Clarkson faculty have a direct impact on more than 7,800 students annually through nationally recognized undergraduate and graduate STEM designated degrees in engineering, business, science and health professions; executive education, industry-relevant credentials and K-12 STEM programs. Alumni earn salaries among the top 2% in the nation: one in five already leads in the c-suite. To learn more go to www.clarkson.edu.
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