George W. McCarthy

Dr. George “Mac” McCarthy is president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since arriving at the Lincoln Institute in 2014, he has grown the organization from 38 to 165 full-time employees. His work to expand the organization’s relevance and impact is evidenced by numerous achievements, including establishing a partnership with Claremont Lincoln University, developing state-of-the-art technology that tells parcel-level stories of land use with unprecedented detail, and growing the Lincoln Institute’s presence on a global scale through its work in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Before joining the Lincoln Institute, Mac directed Metropolitan Opportunity at the Ford Foundation, which sought to provide disadvantaged people better access to good jobs and other opportunities for advancement by supporting regional planning that integrates housing and public transit development. Mac also administered a program at Ford that focused on using homeownership to build assets for low-income families and their communities.

Prior to that, Mac worked as a senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also worked as professor of economics at Bard College, resident scholar at the Jerome Levy Economics Institute, visiting scholar and member of the High Table at King’s College of Cambridge University, visiting scholar at the University of Naples, Italy, and research associate at the Centre for Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mac received a BA in economics and mathematics at the University of Montana; an MA in economics at Duke University; and a PhD in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.