Dr. Michael Cheng-Yi Lin was a Regional Economist within the Research Department at the Milken Institute. Prior to joining the Institute, Lin was a teaching associate at the University of Southern California (USC) in the areas of urban and regional economics, informal housing, policy and program evaluation, and quantitative methods and analysis. Lin received his Ph.D. in policy, planning, and development with a specialization in urban economics from USC. He earned a master's degree in urban design and a bachelor's degree in architecture, both from the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan.