On Friday, November 16, the Economics Department welcomed back an illustrious alumnus as a speaker in the department’s weekly seminar series.  Jeffrey Milyo ’86, Middlebush Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Missouri, spoke on “Campaign Finance Reform and the ‘Actuality and Appearance’ of Corruption.”

Milyo graduated from UConn as an Honors and University Scholar, which allowed him to receive the B.A. and M.A. in Economics simultaneously.  He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford, and went on to positions at Tufts and the University of Chicago before coming to Missouri.

Using differences in campaign-finance laws among U. S. states as a natural experiment, Milyo’s seminar paper tested empirically the effect of campaign-finance reform on corruption in government.  His conclusion is that campaign finance reform has no discernible effect on levels of corruption.

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