Dr. Scott Thomas
Vice President
Education
PhD and MA in economics, University of California, Irvine
BA in economics, cum laude, University of California, Los Angeles
Experience
Dr. Thomas received his BA in economics, cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles, and MA and PhD degrees in economics from the University of California, Irvine. While in graduate school, he specialized in public choice, industrial organization, and econometrics. His graduate honors included a Regent's Dissertation Fellowship and an Outstanding Graduate Scholar Award.
At NERA, Dr. Thomas has worked on a wide variety of antitrust matters involving the aerospace, agriculture, airline, automotive, health care, newspaper, office equipment, oil and gas, plastics, soft drink, and video industries. He has studied relevant markets, monopoly pricing, predatory practices, price discrimination, tying, vertical restraints, mergers and acquisitions, antitrust damages, and class certification issues. Dr. Thomas has also specialized in intellectual property matters involving the construction, insurance brokerage, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical industries. He has focused on the valuation of patents and trade secrets and the calculation of damages resulting from infringement/misappropriation.
In addition, Dr. Thomas has worked on a large number of commercial damages matters involving the industries mentioned above, as well as the accounting, arts and crafts, cable television, life insurance, philanthropy, and sporting goods industries. He has applied econometric techniques and financial analysis to calculate damages for tortious interference, breach of contract, and wrongful injury/termination cases. He has also performed valuations of various businesses, including corporations and professional partnerships, using business projections, financial statements, and stock price data to assess the market value of these entities.
Before joining NERA, Dr. Thomas served on the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught introductory macroeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, and intermediate microeconomics. His research focused on information and advertising: bill sponsors as voting cues, stock market reaction to unanticipated legislation, and negative advertisements and voter turnout.
Dr. Thomas has published several papers in the areas of public choice and industrial organization. His article, "Determinants of Legislative Success in House Committees," appeared in the journal Public Choice. His most recent paper, "Geographic Market Issues in Hospital Mergers," appeared in a handbook on health care mergers and acquisitions, published by the American Bar Association.
He is a member of the American Economic Association and the Western Economic Association and is an associate member of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust, Intellectual Property, and Health Law Sections.
