CERF Executive Director Matthew Fienup is an applied economist who seeks to leverage the tools and insights of economics to address major challenges confronting diverse stakeholders throughout California. He has a strong entrepreneurial orientation, with a track record of applying economics to solve problems.
Matthew has spent more than a decade designing and administering the first groundwater markets to be implemented in California under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Matthew was integral to the design and implementation of the Fox Canyon Water Market, where he served as Exchange Administrator for five years, and the Mid-Kaweah Water Market. Matthew specializes in a stakeholder-centered process of market design. He has also built proprietary electronic trading software used in Fox Canyon and Kaweah Sub-Basin. Matthew’s work on groundwater markets has been featured in the Economist Magazine, NPR’s Planet Money, the Atlantic, and a wide range of industry publications and events.
Matthew is Project Director for the Latino GDP Project, an ambitious multi-disciplinary research initiative which seeks to document the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the United States. Matthew coordinates a team of researchers at CLU and UCLA, who calculate Latino Gross Domestic Product (GDP) using a detailed bottom-up construction that leverages publicly available data from major U.S. agencies. Matthew has presented the Latino GDP research to tens of thousands of individuals in ten different states and the District of Columbia, including to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and a system-wide event of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The research has been covered in more than 800 separate features across print, digital and broadcast media, including The Associated Press, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, CNN Money, Bloomberg, and Univision.
Matthew is also part of an award winning economic forecasting team. Matthew is a member of the Wall Street Journal Economic Forecasting Survey. He and colleague Dan Hamilton are the recipients of 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025 Crystal Ball Awards for the Fannie Mae (formerly Case-Shiller) Home Price Expectations Survey. CERF’s 2-year ahead forecast of U.S. home prices was the single most accurate among more than 100 forecasts included in the survey. Other top finishers, include Moody’s Analytics, the International Monetary Fund, the Wharton School, and the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis.
Matthew’s wide-ranging work was featured on an episode of National Review’s Capital Record podcast with David Bahnsen.
Matthew returned to school to pursue his PhD after running a small business in Ventura County for more than a decade. His other specialties include California Natural History, technical rock climbing and photography. Matthew graduated summa cum laude from the Brooks Institute of Photography and has spent more than 15 years working as a professional climbing guide.