PHILADELPHIA -Antonio M. Merlo has been appointed director of the Penn Institute for Economic Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

Merlo, the Lawrence R. Klein Associate Professor of Economics, joined the Penn faculty in 2000 after holding tenured positions at the University of Minnesota and New York University. His specialty is political economy, and he is a research fellow in the public policy program of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Merlo is associate editor of the Journal of Economic Theory and the Review of Economic Dynamics and serves on the editorial board of International Economic Review.

"Professor Merlo creativity, energy and passion for economic research make him the ideal person to head the institute," said Samuel H. Preston, dean of the Penn School of Arts and Sciences, in announcing the appointment.

The Penn Institute for Economics Research was created in 1993 through a gift from William P. Carey. Its mission is to create an environment for research and teaching that will establish Penn as the leading institution in the world for the study of economics.

An advisory board has been appointed to assist the institute in its mission.

The members are Preston; Chairman William Polk Carey, board chairman of W.P. Carey & Co. LLC; Robert Inman, a professor at Penn Wharton School; Lawrence R. Klein, Penn professor emeritus of economics and a Nobel laureate; James L. McCabe, president of McCabe Capital Managers Ltd.; Frederick J. Warren, Penn professor of demography (ex-officio member); Anthony M. Santomero, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and a Wharton professor of finance.

Also, Thomas J. Sargent, professor of economics at Stanford University and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution; Nancy L. Stokey, professor of economics and of social sciences at the University of Chicago; Edmond D. Villani, president and CEO of Zurich Scudder Investments Inc.; Kenneth I. Wolpin, professor and chairman of the Penn Department of Economics (ex-officio member).