Matthew Fienup, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Center for Economic Research & Forecasting; Associate Professor, Economics
Areas of expertise: Applied Econometrics, Policy Analysis, Environmental Economics, Land Use, Environmental Markets
About
CERF Executive Director Matthew Fienup is an applied economist who seeks to leverage the tools and insights of economics to address major challenges confronting diverse stakeholders throughout California. He has a strong entrepreneurial orientation, with a track record of applying economics to solve problems.
Matthew has spent more than a decade designing and administering the first groundwater markets to be implemented in California under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Matthew was integral to the design and implementation of the Fox Canyon Water Market, where he served as Exchange Administrator for five years, and the Mid-Kaweah Water Market. Matthew specializes in a stakeholder-centered process of market design. He has also built proprietary electronic trading software used in Fox Canyon and Kaweah Sub-Basin. Matthew's work on groundwater markets has been featured in the Economist Magazine, NPR's Planet Money, the Atlantic, and a wide range of industry publications and events.
Matthew is Project Director for the Latino GDP Project, an ambitious multi-disciplinary research initiative which seeks to document the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the United States. Matthew coordinates a team of researchers at CLU and UCLA, who calculate Latino Gross Domestic Product (GDP) using a detailed bottom-up construction that leverages publicly available data from major U.S. agencies. Matthew has presented the Latino GDP research to tens of thousands of individuals in ten different states and the District of Columbia, including to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and a system-wide event of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The research has been covered in more than 800 features across print, digital and broadcast media, including The Associated Press, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, CNN Money, Bloomberg, and Univision.
Matthew is also part of an award-winning economic forecasting team. Matthew is a member of the Wall Street Journal Economic Forecasting Survey. He and colleague Dan Hamilton are the recipients of 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2024 Crystal Ball Awards for the Fannie Mae (formerly Case-Shiller) Home Price Expectations Survey. CERF's 2-year ahead forecast of U.S. home prices was the single most accurate among more than 100 forecasts included in the survey. Other top finishers, include Moody's Analytics, the International Monetary Fund, the Wharton School, and the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis.
Matthew's wide-ranging work was featured on an episode of National Review's Capital Record podcast with David Bahnsen.
Matthew returned to school to pursue his PhD after running a small business in Ventura County for more than a decade. His other specialties include California Natural History, technical rock climbing and photography. Matthew graduated summa cum laude from the Brooks Institute of Photography and has spent more than 15 years working as a professional climbing guide.
Education
U.C. Santa Barbara - Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
MA Economics, PhD Environmental Economics
Woodbury University
BS magna cum laude
Brooks Institute of Photography
AA summa cum laude
University of Michigan School of Art
completed Foundation Program in fine art
Expertise
- Applied econometrics
- Policy analysis
- Environmental economics
- Land use and urban containment policy
- Environmental markets
- California water policy
- Groundwater trading
- Economic forecasting
- Economic measurement
Publications
Select Articles
Hamilton, Dan, Matthew Fienup, David Hayes-Bautista, and Paul Hsu. 2025. “2025 California Latino GDP Report.” The Latino GDP Project, a project of Community Partners. Los Angeles, CA. With the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health & Culture. May 2025. (www.LatinoGDP.us) PDF
Hamilton, Dan, Matthew Fienup, David Hayes-Bautista, and Paul Hsu. 2025. “2025 EE. UU. Informe del PIB Latino: Muy Trabajador, Autosuficiente, Optimista.” The Latino GDP Project, a project of Community Partners. Los Angeles, CA. With the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health & Culture. May 2025. (www.LatinoGDP.us) PDF
Hamilton, Dan, Matthew Fienup, David Hayes-Bautista, and Paul Hsu. 2025. “2025 U.S. Latino GDP Report: Hard-working, Self-sufficient, Optimistic.” The Latino GDP Project, a project of Community Partners. Los Angeles, CA. With the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health & Culture. April 2025. (www.LatinoGDP.us) PDF
Fienup, Matthew and Andrew Plantinga. 2021. “Unintended Effects of Environmental Policies: The Case of Urban Growth Controls and Agricultural Intensification.” Land Economics. 97(2): May 2021. PDF
Heard, S., M. Fienup and E.J. Remson. 2021. “The first SGMA groundwater market is trading: The importance of good design and the risks of getting it wrong.” California Agriculture. March 31, 2021. PDF
Ayers, A., A. Degolia, M. Fienup, Y. Kim, J. Sainz, L. Urbisci, D. Viana, G. Wesolowski, A. Plantinga, and C. Tague. 2016. “Social Science/Natural Science Perspectives on Wildfire and Climate Change.” Geography Compass. 10:67-86. PDF
Grant Funding
Matthew has a strong entrepreneurial orientation, seeking ways to apply insights derived from economics and the tools employed by economists to solve problems. This approach has yielded over $3.5 million in grants and contracts since 2016. Matthew has secured major grants and sponsored research agreements from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Latino Donor Collaborative, Ventura County Community Foundation, CoBank Corporate Citizenship Program, the Morgan Family Foundation, and the California Stewardship Network. These grants have supported a wide range of initiatives from the Latino GDP Project, to designing and implementing groundwater markets in California, and conducting a COVID-19 Antibody study for the Ventura County Healthcare Agency. In addition, Matthew has secured large sub-awards under a Bureau of Reclamation WaterSmart Grant and a Natural Resource Conservation Service Conservation Innovation Grant. Both of these supported the design and implementation of groundwater markets in California.