Robert D. Manning, Ph.D.
Research Professor & Director, Center for Consumer Financial Services
Rochester Institute of Technology
Robert D. Manning, Ph.D. is Research Professor of Finance and Director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services, and past Caroline Werner Gannett Chair of the Humanities, Rochester Institute of Technology. Author of the widely acclaimed Credit Card Nation: America’s Dangerous Addiction to Credit (2000), which received the 2001 Robert Ezra Park Award for Outstanding Contribution to Sociological Practice, Dr. Manning is a specialist in the deregulation of retail banking, household debt, consumer finance, comparative economic development, immigration, and globalization. His path breaking study, "Credit Cards on Campus," was published by Consumer Federation of America in 1999 and received the 2000 Morris Rosenberg Research Award for distinguished scholarship from the District of Columbia Sociology Society. In fall 2007, Dr. Manning launched RIT’s B.S. Degree in Consumer Finance—the first certified Business School program in the nation—featuring three undergraduate majors (Debt Management, Wealth Management, Banking/Insurance).
Dr. Manning's contributions to the "Banking on Misery" special issue of Southern Exposure Magazine received the prestigious 2004 George K. Polk Award for investigative journalism and the 2004 Harry Chapin Award for Poverty Research. It has led to numerous federal and state legislative initiatives including the College Student Credit Card Protection Act which was re-introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in fall 2007. Dr. Manning is frequently invited to testify as an expert witness before U.S. Senate and House Committees on consumer bankruptcy, regulation of consumer financial services, credit card industry policies, predatory lending, and securitization of consumer loans. He also serves as an expert witness in federal and state class-action suits against the credit card industry. In 2007, Dr. Manning was honored as the 12th Frank J. Battisti Memorial Lecturer by the Case Western Reserve School of Law for his outstanding contribution to public policy and the law.
Dr. Manning’s research on the deregulation of consumer financial services is the basis of several documentaries released in 2007, including In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts, directed by Danny Schechter at www.indebtwetrust.com. Also, Dr. Manning’s “Responsible Debt Relief” (13i) program, a consumer alternative to Chapter 7 bankruptcy based on his proprietary consumer debt capacity underwriting algorithm, was introduced in Californian in fall 2007. His popular website includes research, public policy analyses, and educational programs at www.creditcardnation.com.
Dr. Manning’s most recent study, LIVING WITH DEBT, was published by LendingTree.com in October 2005. An expanded version will be released as Borrowing The American Dream in late 2008. His next book on personal finance, Give Yourself Credit!, is a practical guide for the most effective use of consumer credit cards. A specialist in immigration and “free trade” economic development policies, the Cary Press will publish his Globalization and Democracy: American Leadership or Autocracy in the New World Order? in Spring 2008. Dr. Manning's current book project, Credit Card World, examines the economic, political, and cultural impacts of the global expansion of consumer credit and debt.
Dr. Manning's research has been widely reported in the U.S. and international media including Sixty Minutes II, ABC World News, ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings, ABC's Good Morning America (Diane Sawyer), Bloomberg Financial News, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CNBC’s ON THE MONEY, SQUAWK BOX, CNN Headline News, CNN Morning News, CNN Evening News (Lou Dobbs), CNN Burden of Proof, C-SPAN, FOX Evening News, O'Reilly Factor, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, MSNBC with Brian Williams, Jim Lehrer News Hour (PBS), National Public Radio (All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, Weekend Edition), Voice of America, Jim Bohannon Show, Australian Public Radio, British Broadcast Corporation, Canadian Public Radio, Reuters International, and Swedish Public Radio.
Dr. Manning received his PhD from the Program in Comparative International Development of The Johns Hopkins University in 1989, a MA in U.S. Economic History from Northern Illinois University in 1981, and is a 1979 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University. A specialist in labor migration from Mexico and the Caribbean, Dr. Manning is a past Senior Fulbright Lecturer to the Universidad Autonoma de Oaxaca and Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. He has conducted field work in Florida, Cuba, Haiti, and Mexico. Dr. Manning has testified before the U.S. Immigration Reform Commission, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and several state legislative bodies in regard to immigration policy and the socio-cultural adaptation of Latino immigrants and US racial inequality.