Donald Bruce is the Randy and Jenny Boyd Distinguished Professor in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee with a joint appointment as Director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research and Professor in the Department of Economics. He also serves as the University of Tennessee's Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA and SEC. As a Boyd Center economist, he regularly provides objective, non-partisan policy research and evaluation under contracts with an array of government agencies at the federal and state levels. His recent work has included an ongoing evaluation of Tennessee’s welfare program, Families First, for the Tennessee Department of Human Services, an analysis of teacher supply and demand in Tennessee for the Governor’s Office of Education Policy, and a forecast of expenditures on Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarships for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. In addition to his Boyd Center research, Dr. Bruce studies the economic and behavioral effects of tax policies on such things as small business activity and owner-occupied housing. His work has been presented and published in a variety of academic journals, edited volumes, and professional meetings. He has testified before Congress on the topic of internet taxation, and he presented his work on taxes and small business activity before the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform in 2005. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on the economics of taxation.

Dr. Bruce joined the UT faculty in 1999 after receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Syracuse University and his B.A. with honors in Economics from Drew University.