An action photo of Dr Snarr

It is not from the
benevolence of the butcher,
the brewer, or the baker that
we expect our dinner, but
from their regard to
their own interest.
Adam Smith

About Hal

Hal W. Snarr is the son of a third generation Idaho potato farmer who was raised in an ignoble but resolute Mormon household. His career is a result of a fortuitous series of accidents. He was expected to multiply and replenish the earth, not teach economics and statistics—even though he had always thought like an economist and excelled in mathematics.

Hal got his first taste for teaching after shining in Naval Nuclear Power School, but was not aware of what a Ph.D. was until he took Calculus I, II and III for fun at Idaho State University. A couple of years later he found himself teaching algebra and proving theorems in the master of science in mathematics program at ISU. Although he was having fun, he wanted to use mathematics in more meaningful ways. He discovered how to do this while taking mathematical economics at ISU. In this course, he gained an intuition of the eigenvalue. This set him on his present path. After all, wouldn't you do the same if you had just learned that negative eigenvalues mean you are on the peak of a three dimensional surface because steps taken in the x and y directions are downward?

His unconventional journey gives him a unique insight into the cohorts he studies. Most economists were not raised by low-income single mothers who had to, on occasion, reluctantly use public assistance and purple money (old school food stamps). As a teenager, he also observed beer-for-purple money exchanges. Thus, he understands how the cohorts he studies think. Other scholars who have never eaten welfare omelets may have unknowingly constructed biased econometric models that support the idea that poor single mothers with young children bank benefits for future use. Such mothers do not have this luxury. They are more worried about putting food on the table, catching up on back rent, and making sure the electricity remains on.

Hal is an associate professor of economics at North Carolina A&T State University. His research studies how welfare and other policies affect labor supply, marriage, fertility, migration, dependency, and poverty. He teaches six courses per academic year plus two during the summer term. He regularly teaches macroeconomic principles, business statistics, introductory regression analysis, and labor economics.

Hal's hobbies include producing instructional videos for The Snarr Institute (his YouTube channel), and commenting on economic policy proposals and politics via his Twitter and Facebook pages. He also comments occasionally on articles posted on the Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, ESPN, and others under alias halsnarr. He enjoys home improvement projects, vehicle repair, watching the news and movies, walking, attending church services, a good debate, and spending time and traveling with his family.

Hal is married to a first generation Haitian-American from Brooklyn. They are the parents of a pleasant, dresser-climbing, couch-jumping, energetic two year old boy who loves books, alphabets, and numbers more than toys.