Founding Dean

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Emeritus Roberto S. Mariano, founding Dean of SMU’s School of Economics, on 17 April 2025. 

He served as Dean, SMU School of Economics from 1 July 2002 to 30 June 2010.  Professor Mariano was a visionary leader who played a crucial role in the development of SMU, shaping the School and its community.

Today, we have a strong faculty, committed staff, outstanding students, a growing and supportive alumni base, and wide industry connections. Many of our Economics faculty are among the very best in the world, recognized internationally for their academic-excellence. Thanks to Professor Mariano's many connections in the academic world, SOE has been host to many distinguished visitors and a variety of global conferences.

Professor Mariano's work was also important to the establishment of the Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics, which remains as one of SMU's key interdisciplinary research centres. Under his stellar leadership as Director of SKBI (2008 to June 2010), the Institute initiated and spearheaded numerous conferences, seminars and symposiums on REITs and real estate, corporate governance, silver security and longevity risk.

In addition, SOE and SKBI successfully hosted the annual Far Eastern and South Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society meeting (FEMES) in 2008 during Professor Mariano's deanship. The program consisted of plenary, invited and contributed sessions in all fields of economics.

With an illustrious career spanning three decades, Professor Mariano brought with him a wealth of experience in the corporate and public sectors as well as in academia. He was with the Economics faculty of the University of Pennsylvania since 1971 and he had held visiting positions in various academic institutions in the US , Europe and Asia . He authored numerous research papers and books on econometric methodology and applications and served on the editorial board of several international professional journals in economics and statistics. He was the principal investigator in research projects funded by the United Nations, US National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Agriculture. With a focus on econometric modeling for forecasting and policy analysis, he was a consultant to various central banks, government ministries, and stock exchanges in Asia as well as private companies in Asia and the US .

In Singapore, he had worked on a research project for the Ministry of Manpower entitled "Macroeconometric Sectoral Modeling for Manpower Planning in Singapore" from 2000 to 2002 where he was the principal investigator with Nobel Laureate Lawrence R. Klein. Within the region, he was principal investigator of two major research projects, namely one for Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Central Bank of the Philippines) on "Macromodeling for Inflation Targeting in the Philippines" and another for Bank Negara Malaysia (the Central Bank of Malaysia) on "Macroeconometric Modeling for Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Malaysia".

Professor Mariano also formed a research team of Economics faculty in SMU to join the ASEAN+3 research consortium - with "Toward Greater Financial Stability in the Asian Region: Exploring Steps to Create Regional Monetary Units" as the research theme for 2006-07. Research findings and policy recommendations of the research consortium were relayed through the ASEAN Secretariat for policy guidance to the Finance Ministries and Central Banks in Southeast Asia.

Professor Mariano's mark on the University as well as his impact on public policy and the business world will be felt for generations, and all of us are grateful to him for the work that he had done to turn ideas into reality.