Newswise — Clarkson University Economics Prof. Sonmez Atesoglu is available for expert comment on today's Fed rate cut.

In a December 11 news release http://www.clarkson.edu/news/view.php?id=1909 , Atesoglu said that the new benchmark federal funds rate of 4.25% (set on Dec. 11) was much too high to get the optimum levels of employment and gross domestic product that the Federal Reserve is looking for. Based on an equation he developed, the December cut in interest rates was not enough, he said.

Atesoglu has published articles in more than 50 scholarly journals, including The Journal of Monetary Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, Southern Economic Journal, Journal of Macroeconomics, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Kredit und Kapital, Review of International Economics, Applied Economics, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Defence and Peace Economics, Strategic Review, and The American Political Science Review.

Prior to his appointment, to the Clarkson School of Business he served as an economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.