“The work incentive created by the Earned Income Tax Credit has been the subject of extensive study for decades now, with generally positive results. The pro-work potential of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), in contrast, has been relatively ignored.
A new job market paper fromWei Zheng, a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut, attempts to fill this gap in the literature. Using event study and simulation techniques, Zheng provides new and detailed estimates of the effect of the Child Tax Credit on maternal labor supply. The headline finding: a $1000 increase in the average CTC is associated with a 1.1 percentage pointincreasein labor force participation for single mothers.”
Professor Jorge Agüero and third year PhD student Miranda Mendiola’s proposal “Role models: Information and Gender Stereotypes” for a pilot project, sponsored by the Innovation Laboratory for Cost-Effective Educational Policy – MineduLAB in the Peruvian Ministry of Education, has been approved.
Their project has the objective of reducing gender stereotypes and improving grades for high school students through the use of role models. Traditionally, efforts to reduce gender gaps have focused on empowering women. Professor Agüero and Miranda’s project focuses on changing the perception of both genders’ abilities by showing students movies that have young main characters being successful in careers that are nontraditional for their gender. They hope to improve women’s scores in STEM courses, where they traditionally perform worse, and also to improve men’s scores in courses they traditionally struggle with (Spanish and history). They will measure changes in gender bias through a questionnaire and a game, with the objective of measuring both explicit and implicit biases.
This project will hopefully be a pilot for a larger project in Peru, aiding in the reduction of gender bias in Peruvian schools.
UConn’s Nishith Prakash and Lindsey Buck, along with coauthors Maria Micaela Sviatschi and Sofia Amaral were awarded a $76,000 grant from Princeton in order to study COVID-19’s implications on domestic violence.
Project Title: Macroeconomic Shocks and Domestic Violence: Evidence from COVID-19
Abstract:
Domestic violence (DV), defined as stalking, rape, or physical violence, is a global problem with 35% of women worldwide reporting experiencing DV (WHO 2017). In this project, our goal is twofold. First, we aim to look at COVID-19 – a large macroeconomic and health shock — on an important outcome from a welfare perspective: domestic violence (DV). DV is an important outcome to study because it has large financial and health implications; DV survivors suffer reductions in earnings and poor health (Aizer, 2011) and the CDC spends $5.8bn annually on health costs related to DV (St. Jude House). Second, we also aim to test two interventions that are likely to determine pathways to aid victims of DV during a pandemic: one consists of providing labor market opportunities for women and a second one on providing information on how to identify and respond in DV cases. We will sample 4000 women in the U.S. on the M-Turk platform and collect information on their financial, emotional, and relationship stress levels. Then, we provide two interventions. The first treatment will provide information on the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH), where trained advocates are available to talk confidentially and provide resources on DV. We will also provide the NDVH’s resources on healthy relationships, legal help, and conflict resolution. The second treatment will provide a cash transfer to women for completing tasks on M-Turk; in this way we will increase women’s labor market opportunities at home. Our results will shed light on two important questions: First, can information mitigate the effects of DV? Secondly, can labor market opportunities mitigate the effects on DV? Our goal is to look at the broad implications of COVID-19 on DV and illustrate policy opportunities to mitigate DV in the wake of an unprecedented macroeconomic shock.
Associate Professor of Economics Nishith Prakash and graduate student Lindsey Buck are part of a research group that was awarded a $76,000 grant from Princeton University to study COVID-19’s implications on domestic violence. They will test two interventions that are likely to determine pathways to aid victims of domestic violence during a pandemic: One consists of providing labor market opportunities for women, and a second one that provides information on how to identify and respond in domestic violence cases.
Although the department was not able to celebrate with an awards banquet this year, we still are able to recognize the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty! This year’s award recipients are:
Elizabeth Kaletski, a 2014 PhD graduate of the UConn Department of Economics, is being granted tenure at Ithaca College, where she is on the faculty in the Department of Economics. She will will start next academic year as an Associate Professor of Economics.
Matt Ross, one of our Ph.D. graduates, was interviewed by The Guardian about the new study of racial profiling in police stops in the State of California, as well as about his own research with UConn faculty member Steve Ross and another Ph.D. graduate Jesse Kalinowski:
Anupam Nanda has accepted a Professorship at the University of Manchester, UK. He will start in November this year.
Anupam completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Connecticut in 2006. Anupam has been at the University of Reading and has developed a significant scholarly reputation for his research in real estate markets. Professor Stephen Ross was his major advisor.
On April 18, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:
Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Kader Akpinar
Gianna DeMasi
Ryan Gilland
Michelle Grieco
Andrew Hendrickson Jr.
Christopher Holden
Andrew Humphrey
Marisa Infante
Yuansun Jiang
Megan Llewellyn
Colin MacDougald
Adam Patterson
William Poundstone
James Rice
Jeffery Sanawong
David Stanco
Brianna Sullivan
Mollie Swanton
Mary Vlamis
Nicholas Wehrle
Undergraduate Awards
Economics Department General Scholarship
Michael Goccia
Mathilda Hill
James Rice
Sharon Spaulding
Qingya Yang
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Tiffany D’Andrea
Zichen Shu
Zian Zhang
Harrison Zraly
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Arianna Dines
Sueing Ngov
Sheng Tian
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Fizza Alam
Dea Ballij
Marisa Infante
Ajshe Zulfi
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Harry Godfrey-Fogg
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Michelle Grieco
Charles Triano Scholarship
Gianna DeMasi
Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship
Elizabeth Miller
Alexander Mostaghami
John Peterson
Mary Vlamis
Ross Mayer Scholarship
John Cizeski
Tyler DiBrino
Graduate Awards
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Mark McInerney
W. Harrison Carter Award
Lindsey Buck
Huarui Jing
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Wei Zheng
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Heli Zu
Jinning Wang
Economics Department General Scholarship
Treena Goswami
Shilpa Sethia
Rui Sun
Kevin Wood
Haoxiang Xu
Best Third Year Paper Award
Umesh Ghimire
Roklen Graduate Research Scholarship
Xizi Li
Eleanor Bloom Trust Fund
Eniola Fasola
Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
Xuejian Gong
Miranda Mendiola Valdez
Ziyun Wu
Hao Cui
Anup Tiwari
Ruohan Huang
Yizhi Zhu
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen
On April 18, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:
Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Kader Akpinar
Gianna DeMasi
Ryan Gilland
Michelle Grieco
Andrew Hendrickson Jr.
Christopher Holden
Andrew Humphrey
Marisa Infante
Yuansun Jiang
Megan Llewellyn
Colin MacDougald
Adam Patterson
William Poundstone
James Rice
Jeffery Sanawong
David Stanco
Brianna Sullivan
Mollie Swanton
Mary Vlamis
Nicholas Wehrle
Undergraduate Awards
Economics Department General Scholarship
Michael Goccia
Mathilda Hill
James Rice
Sharon Spaulding
Qingya Yang
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Tiffany D’Andrea
Zichen Shu
Zian Zhang
Harrison Zraly
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Arianna Dines
Sueing Ngov
Sheng Tian
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Fizza Alam
Dea Ballij
Marisa Infante
Ajshe Zulfi
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Harry Godfrey-Fogg
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Michelle Grieco
Charles Triano Scholarship
Gianna DeMasi
Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship
Elizabeth Miller
Alexander Mostaghami
John Peterson
Mary Vlamis
Ross Mayer Scholarship
John Cizeski
Tyler DiBrino
Graduate Awards
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Mark McInerney
W. Harrison Carter Award
Lindsey Buck
Huarui Jing
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Wei Zheng
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Heli Zu
Jinning Wang
Economics Department General Scholarship
Treena Goswami
Shilpa Sethia
Rui Sun
Kevin Wood
Haoxiang Xu
Best Third Year Paper Award
Umesh Ghimire
Roklen Graduate Research Scholarship
Xizi Li
Eleanor Bloom Trust Fund
Eniola Fasola
Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
Xuejian Gong
Miranda Mendiola Valdez
Ziyun Wu
Hao Cui
Anup Tiwari
Ruohan Huang
Yizhi Zhu
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen
Kevin Wood has been awarded a nationally competitive Ph.D. Fellowship from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and the Social Security Administration (SSA).
His doctoral research examines decisions of older Americans in response to the introduction of the Affordable Care Act including retirement prior to receipt of Medicare and enrollment in other SSA programs such as Disability Insurance and the Supplemental Security Income program.
In recent years this fellowship has been awarded to graduate students at institutions such as Yale, Harvard and the University of Maryland. Congratulations to Kevin on his accomplishment!
