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The research community at the Institute includes visiting scholars, consultants, economists, research analysts, and research assistants. These scholars bring varied backgrounds, interests, and expertise to research that deepens our understanding of economic opportunity and inclusion as well as policies that work to improve both.
As he begins a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, Richard Liu has been asked a lot: What kind of economics do you want to do?
“I get excited when I say, ‘I don’t know,’” said Liu, who recently finished almost three years as a research associate with the Institute. “There are so many important questions.”
A conversation with Liu spans the opioid crisis in his Indiana hometown, iron deficiency among schoolchildren in rural China, and whether political polarization affects household consumption. And that’s before we get to the many projects where he became integral at the Institute.
Most of those projects relate to Income Distributions and Dynamics in America (IDDA), a joint Institute effort with the Census Bureau to publish U.S. earnings data at unprecedented detail. Liu’s IDDA work included teaming with the Minneapolis Fed’s Center for Indian Country Development to advance knowledge of incomes on Native land areas. He spent much of his final months in a vault-like computer lab, poring over unreleased earnings data and debating the meaning with colleagues. “We’d go through four or five different charts and spend, I kid you not, a half hour talking about each one, trying to think, What is the story we’re learning from this?”
The magazine of the opportunity & Inclusive Growth institute
In 2025, Liu collaborated with counterparts in other cities to organize the first academic conference by and for Fed research assistants. Around 100 attended the virtual event, which they held again in 2026.
Although he majored in economics, Liu’s interest in research was inspired by a sociology professor. As he joined the Institute, he still wasn’t sure an econ Ph.D. was the path for him. “The strongest signal for me that I wanted to apply to grad school was that I liked going to seminars,” Liu said. “I wanted to understand more.” He also saw how the economists, while deeply devoted to economic theory in the Minneapolis Fed tradition, remained committed to real world influence. “They care a lot about policy, which is why I got into this.”
Liu said he found his purpose and potential at the Institute thanks to the mentorship of Natalie Gubbay, a research associate who died in a car crash in 2024. “When I first came here, I felt totally out of my depth,” Liu said. “Natalie was so brilliant. But also from a character standpoint, one of the most formative parts of my time here was getting to work with her.”
This article is featured in the Fall 2026 issue of For All, the magazine of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute
More scholar spotlights from this issue
Andrew Glover—Plain language, policy impact
Moises Yi—Similar people, dissimilar outcomes
Jeff Horwich is the senior economics writer for the Minneapolis Fed. He has been an economic journalist with public radio, commissioned examiner for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and director of policy and communications for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. He received his master’s degree in applied economics from the University of Minnesota.
