734.214.2229

Contact Zeyuan

Zeyuan Fan joined applEcon as a Staff Analyst in July 2026 after graduating from the University of Michigan. Zeyuan graduated with a triple major in Statistics, Economics, and International Studies and a minor in Data Science. His academic interests included data analysis, urban economics, and international relations, with course focused on applied regression and quantitative methods for studying cities, housing markets, and local economic policy.

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Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Frederick R. (Rick) Warren-Boulton is an internationally recognized economics expert in the fields of antitrust and industrial organization, particularly in the economics of vertical restraints, mergers, price fixing, exclusion, and monopolization, and has testified and published extensively on those issues. Dr. Warren-Boulton served for six years as Chief Economist of the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), first as Director of its Economic Policy Office and then as the first Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis, before cofounding MiCRA, an economic consulting firm specializing in applied microeconomic theory, industrial organization and econometrics, in 1991. He is a former Associate Professor of Economics at Washington University (St. Louis), a former Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, a former Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former Research Professor of Psychology at American University.

Dr. Warren-Boulton has published and consulted extensively on mergers, price fixing, exclusion and other restrictive or collusive agreements. His publications on mergers concern the effect of mergers on prices, methods of antitrust analysis of mergers, and the U.S. Merger Guidelines. At the DOJ, he was a primary author of the US Sentencing Guidelines for criminal antitrust offenses such as price fixing and market allocation. He has lectured and written on related issues such as optimal fines, penalties, and leniency

Dr. Warren-Boulton has served as the testifying expert for a number of government agencies on landmark monopolization and merger cases, including for the Department of Justice in U.S. v. AT&T, U.S. v. Microsoft, and U.S. v. H&R Block, for the Federal Trade Commission in FTC v. Staples and Office Depot and FTC v. Ardagh Group et al, and for competition authorities in Canada and New Zealand on matters involving mergers, price fixing, and exclusion.

He has provided econometric estimates of harm for private parties negotiating fines and penalties with the DOJ and the antitrust agencies in Canada, the European Union, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, and has been the expert for liability and damages for both defendant and plaintiffs in a number of class action and opt-out cases in the US involving price fixing or market allocation in a wide variety of industries, including air cargo, ocean car carriers and parcel shipping, auto parts, capacitors, computer software and hardware and generic and prescription drugs.

applEcon Contact
Brian Rosewarne

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Curriculum Vitae

David Neumark is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy at the University of California, Irvine. He has previously held positions at the Federal Reserve Board, the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan State University, and the Public Policy Institute of California, and he is currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has been a co-editor of the Journal of Urban Economics, an editor of the IZA Journal of Labor Policy, and has served on the editorial board of numerous journals. His research contributions have been recognized by being appointed a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as an expert witness in numerous cases related to sex, age, and race discrimination in labor markets.

Professor Neumark has made research contributions in numerous areas of labor economics that intersect with important public policy issues. Neumark’s research on labor market discrimination has opened up new methods of measuring discrimination. His early work on wage equation decompositions led to efforts to better tie these measurement methods to underlying models of discrimination. Later work developed methods of using matched employer-employee data to test for discrimination. His recent methodological contribution on audit and correspondence studies is being rapidly adopted in new and ongoing studies.

Neumark was one of the original contributors to the “new minimum wage research,” helping to pioneer the use of state-level minimum wage variation to estimate minimum wage effects. His subsequent work moved beyond the debate over employment effects, to research on the effects of minimum wages on the income distribution, long-run effects of minimum wages on human capital and earnings, and complementarities between minimum wages and the EITC. In related work, he was the first to assemble data and explore methods to study the effects of city living wage laws, as well as contributing to understanding the political economy of these laws. His new work is focused on re-evaluating some core findings in the recent minimum wage literature, including using cross-border designs to estimate effects of minimum wages on employment, and evidence that monopsony weakens the job loss effects of minimum wages. Neumark has authored many studies on age discrimination and the economics of aging. Recently, he has studied how stronger age discrimination laws complement policy reforms intended to increase labor supply of older workers, conducted a large-scale field experiment testing for age discrimination, and developed methods to test for age stereotypes in job ads and explore how these influence job search of older workers.

applEcon Contact
Brian Rosewarne

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Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Michael F. Pesko is the J. Rhoads Foster Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri. He has previously submitted expert economic testimony in cases involving competition and regulation, including In re: JUUL Labs, Inc. Antitrust Litigation and Marshall v. Altria Group Inc., et al.

Dr. Pesko’s research examines the causal effects of public policies on health behaviors, market outcomes, and economic decision-making. His work applies quasi-experimental methods to large-scale administrative, retail, and survey datasets to evaluate how policies affecting prices, access, and information shape individual and market responses, including the estimation of counterfactual outcomes. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers including in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and has been cited over 3,500 times.

Dr. Pesko serves as director of the Social Impact Lab—a multidisciplinary research group spanning economics, law and policy, and public health. He has contributed to scientific and policy discussions through service on advisory bodies in the United States and Canada.

applEcon Contact
Brian Rosewarne

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734.214.2228

Contact Yael

Yael Atzmon joined applEcon as a Staff Analyst in September 2025 after graduating from the University of Michigan. Yael graduated with a degree in public policy and minors in economics and English. Her academic interests included studying economic policy related to inequality and the intersection between law and economics. Yael also served as the president of the Michigan Journal of Economics after writing articles on a variety of economic topics. 

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Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Darrell L. Williams is an expert in antitrust economics with more than two decades of experience advising clients and regulatory agencies on complex competition matters across a range of industries—including technology, healthcare, petroleum, and sports. He has served as an economic expert in high-profile litigation involving global price-fixing, exclusive dealings, market dominance, and joint ventures. His recent work includes expert testimony in In re College Athlete NIL Litigation, a landmark case at the intersection of antitrust and sports economics.

Dr. Williams began his career in the public sector, serving as a staff economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he provided economic analysis on issues of industrial organization and regulatory policy. He later served as a financial economist at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he worked on matters related to securities fraud, corporate control, and market regulation.

In addition to his consulting work, Dr. Williams is an award-winning teacher. He is a former faculty member in the Department of Economics at UCLA, where he taught courses in antitrust, securities markets, and economic regulation. He has also lectured at the Economics Institute for Federal Judges and served as Vice Chair of the Economics Committee in the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association.

applEcon Contact
Brian Rosewarne

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M.A. Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
B.A. Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Nels

With more than 35 years of experience as an economic consultant and testifying expert, Nels Pearsall provides clients with deep expertise in liability analysis, damages quantification, and asset valuation across a wide range of industries and legal contexts.

Mr. Pearsall has extensive experience in antitrust matters, including monopolization, price discrimination, tying, predatory pricing, price fixing, collusion, and vertical and horizontal restraints. He has also advised on cases involving industry standard-setting, patent pooling, and licensing practices alleged to be anticompetitive. He is co-author of the antitrust chapter in Litigation Services Handbook: The Role of the Financial Expert (5th Ed., John Wiley & Sons).

His intellectual property work spans the valuation of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, as well as the analysis of economic damages in disputes involving reasonable royalties, lost profits, and price erosion. He has also assisted clients with transfer pricing and IP strategy related to intangible asset transactions.

In broader commercial disputes, Mr. Pearsall has assessed damages in matters involving breach of contract, business interruption, real estate investment losses, commercial fraud, changes in asset or equity value, and fiduciary claims. His work includes detailed analyses of markets, financial instruments, industry transactions, and corporate strategies. He has developed economic and financial models to evaluate firm performance, forecast sales, and measure competitive impact.

Mr. Pearsall’s consulting background also includes engagements involving market intelligence, pricing models, predictive analytics, survey design, and business valuation. He brings a practical, data-driven approach to solving complex problems, with a focus on providing clear, defensible, and actionable insights to clients, counsel, and courts. In addition to his client work, Mr. Pearsall has authored numerous articles and is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer for business and legal organizations, as well as academic institutions. His presentations often focus on economic damages, market analysis, and the intersection of business strategy and legal disputes.

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Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Evan Starr is an Associate Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. His research examines issues related to employment contracts, employee mobility, entrepreneurship, innovation, and human capital. He is particularly interested in how the fine print in employment contracts (e.g., noncompete and nondisclosure agreements) and the policies that regulate them influence workers, firms, and markets. Dr. Starr has authored more than a dozen articles in leading journals in economics and management and testified in front of the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, and many state governments. His research has been covered in major news outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NPR, Financial Times, and The Washington Post.  Dr. Starr’s prior expert consulting work includes testimony and reports related to mobility restrictions, damages, class certification, and statistical analysis. Formerly a professor at the University of Illinois, Dr. Starr received his PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan.

applEcon Contact
Josh Palmer

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Curriculum Vitae

Pierre Thomas Léger is an economist with over 20 years of experience in applied research focusing on healthcare economics, industrial organization, labor economics, and applied econometrics. Professor Léger’s research focuses on healthcare markets with special emphasis on the impact of financial incentives on provider treatment decisions, costs, and patient outcomes. He is currently working on several projects including studies on the role of local market conditions, financial incentives, and provider culture in explaining geographic variations in healthcare utilization and spending in both Medicare and commercial insurance markets. Professor Léger has given numerous invited seminars, grand rounds, and lectures at leading academic institutions in Canada, the US, Europe, and South America. His work has been published in leading academic outlets including Management Science, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, the Journal of Health Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Encyclopedia of Health Economics. 

Professor Léger is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Administration at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he has served as the MS-CTS and PhD program director, and the Acting division director. Professor Léger currently teaches courses in healthcare finance to EMHA students, and research methods to PhD, MD and PharmD students, as well as medical school fellows and faculty members. Over the years he has taught courses in econometrics, industrial organization, health economics, managerial economics, and healthcare finance. Prior to joining UIC, Professor Léger was an Associate Professor at HEC Montreal -the University of Montreal’s affiliated business school. He has held visiting positions at the Paris School of Economics, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of los Andes, Santiago Chile.

Professor Léger has consulted on patent and antitrust cases in both Canada and the US. Professor Léger is fluent in French and English. He holds an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Western Ontario, and a B.Soc.Sc. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Ottawa.

applEcon Contact
Brian Rosewarne

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