Month: July 2011

Thomas Miceli publishes “The Economic Theory of Eminent Domain: Private Property, Public Use”

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Professor Thomas Miceli’s latest book, “The Economic Theory of Eminent Domain: Private Property, Public Use”, has just been published by Cambridge University Press.  A brief description of the contents of the book is as follows:

This book surveys the contributions that economic theory has made to the often contentious debate over the government’s use of its power of eminent domain, as prescribed by the Fifth Amendment. It addresses such questions as: When should the government be allowed to take private property without the owner’s consent? Does it depend on how the land will be used? And what amount of compensation is the landowner entitled to receive (if any)? The recent case of Kelo v. New London (2005) revitalized the debate, but it was only the latest skirmish in the ongoing struggle between advocates of strong governmental powers to acquire private property in the public interest and private property rights advocates. Written for a general audience, the book advances a coherent theory that views eminent domain within the context of the government’s proper role in an economic system whose primary objective is to achieve efficient land use.

Paramita Dhar defends, heads to CCSU

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On 17th June, 2011, Paramita Dhar defended her dissertation entitled “Essays on the Economics of Housing” under the supervision of Prof. Stephen L. Ross.  Paramita’s dissertation examined two different questions about housing and location choice. In her first essay, she analyzed the impact of school quality on property values using a differences-in-differences strategy. In the other two essays of her dissertation, she focused on the issue of discrimination against minority homebuyers that might lead to the segregation of neighborhoods. In both of these essays she used fair housing audit data from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study on three large minority groups in Los Angeles to examine the causes of spatial variation of the nature of discrimination.

This fall, Paramita will be heading to Central Connecticut State University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Economics.

Catalina Granda-Carvajal defends, heads to Universidad de Antioquia

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On June 21, 2011, Catalina Granda-Carvajal defended her dissertation, “Essays on the Macroeconomic Effects of the Unofficial Sector.”  Under the valuable supervision and support of her advisor, Prof. Christian Zimmermann, Catalina’s thesis focuses on how the unofficial sector and its intrinsic characteristics are related to aggregate fluctuations.  At an empirical level, she determines how business cycle stylized facts vary across countries with the extent of the shadow economy and compares the resulting patterns with predictions from existing models featuring underground activities.  Also, she incorporates an irregular sector into a real business cycle model to challenge the notion that fluctuations in the official and unofficial sectors are negatively correlated.  Using a similar theoretical framework, she finally addresses how informal firms’ limited access to credit affects macroeconomic and firm volatility.

Pieces of Catalina’s dissertation have been presented in a couple of international conferences and a section was selected for publication at the International Economic Journal last December.  In addition to her thesis, she has taken part in an interdisciplinary project on options for brownfields revitalization in Connecticut under the supervision of Prof. Kathleen Segerson.  She currently holds a tenure-track position at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín (Colombia).

Ken Couch gives talks at NSF, Econometric Society, and Fed Conferences

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Ken Couch, an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics has been busy this summer with research presentations.  During May, he presented a paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco regarding economic outcomes of divorce.  In  June, Ken made a presentation at the Econometric Society Summer Meetings in St. Louis, MO of a paper co-authored with a recent UConn Ph.D., Tao Chen.  That paper examines the ability of econometricians to recover the results of a social experiment when random data are not available.  In June, Ken also made a presentation at a National Science Foundation conference in Fairfax Virginia on the use of interoperable administrative data for administrative and research purposes.