Russell Ormiston

Professor Russell Ormiston
Professor Russell Ormiston

Associate Professor

Allegheny College, Quigley Hall 208
Meadville, PA 16335
rormisto@allegheny.edu
(814) 332-2887

Degrees: B.S., M.A., M.A., Ph.D., Michigan State University

Vitae:  Click here

Prof. Russ Ormiston joined the Allegheny College faculty as an assistant professor in 2010, and was promoted to associate professor in 2017. A Michigan native, he comes to Allegheny after completing his undergraduate and graduate work at Michigan State University in statistics and economics (B.S.), economics (M.A.) and labor and industrial relations (M.A., Ph.D.).

The position at Allegheny College allows Prof. Ormiston to combine three of his passions: teaching and mentoring students, the economic issues of working-class Americans, and sports. As an instructor, Prof. Ormiston teaches courses in microeconomics, econometrics, human resource management, and a senior seminar that explores employment in the United States through the lenses of economics, psychology, sociology, and management theory. For his work in the classroom, he received the 2017 Thoburn Award for Teaching Excellence, the highest honor for an Allegheny College faculty member with 10 years of service or less.

Professor Ormiston (far right) during his term as Co-Director for the Center for Business & Economics with students during a tour of the Bloomberg headquarters in New York City

A first-generation college student, Prof. Ormiston’s blue-collar roots compelled him to pursue graduate school training in economics and labor relations with the goal of authoring research that would help improve the lives of working Americans. To those ends, he is currently the President of the Institute for Construction Economic Research, a non-profit and non-partisan network of academic scholars in the U.S. and Canada that is committed to the pursuit of academic-caliber research that best informs public policy regulating the construction industry. Prof. Ormiston’s own research examines how labor and employment law influences the operation of construction labor markets, with particular interests in worker misclassification and policies that strengthen workers’ wages on public construction projects.

Prof. Ormiston is also an avid sports fan, and has authored academic research on sports economics that has been featured in stories on ESPN.com and in Forbes. Prior to entering academia, he spent four years working in two Division I college athletics departments and for a minor-league baseball team; he also spent three seasons as a high school basketball coach in the Lansing, Mich., area. Prof. Ormiston has channeled his background and interest in sports to teach a freshman seminar course on data analytics in professional sports (NBA/NFL/MLB), and often oversees students’ senior comp research on sports economics topics.

Selected Research

 Book Chapters

Belman, D., & Ormiston, R. (2021). Creating a Sustainable Industry and Workforce in the U.S. Construction Industry. In D. Belman, J. Druker and G. White (Eds.), Work and Labor Relations in the Construction Industry: An International Perspective. Routledge. (LINK)

Ormiston, R., Belman, D., Brockman, J., & Hinkel, M. (2020). Residential Construction. In P. Osterman (Ed.), Creating Good Jobs: An Industry-Based Strategy, MIT Press. (LINK)

Policy Papers

Juravich, T., Ormiston, R., & Belman, D. (2021). The Social and Economic Costs of Illegal Misclassification, Wage Theft and Tax Fraud in Residential Construction in Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Working Paper Series. (LINK)

Ormiston, R., Belman, D., & Erlich, M. (2020). An Empirical Methodology to Estimate the Incidence and Costs of Payroll Fraud in the Construction Industry. Institute for Construction Economic Research. (LINK)

 Ormiston, R., Belman, D., & Hinkel, M. (2017). New York’s Prevailing Wage Law: A Cost-Benefit Analysis. Economic Policy Institute. (LINK)

Academic Articles

Duncan, K., & Ormiston, R. (2019). What Does Research Tell Us About Prevailing Wage Laws? Labor Studies Journal, 44 (2), 139-160. (LINK)

 Ormiston, R. (2016). Does High School Employment Develop Marketable Skills? Journal of Labor Research, 37(1), 53-68. (LINK)

 Ormiston, R. (2014). Attendance Effects of Star Pitchers in Major League Baseball, Journal of Sports Economics, 15(4), 338-364. (LINK)

Ormiston, R. (2014). Worker Displacement and Occupation-Specific Human Capital, Work and Occupations, 41(3), 350-384. (LINK)