Author: kak11010

Preliminary Spring seminar program released

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The UConn Department of Economics pursues an active seminar program to allow outsiders to present their latest research as well as local faculty and students to run their latest output by their colleagues. For this Spring term, the preliminary program has been posted. Among the regular activities are:


  • the seminars, typically given by faculty from outside the university, are given Fridays at 3:30pm and run for 90 minutes;
  • the brownbags are scheduled for Tuesdays at 12:30pm this term and run for 45-60 minutes. Usually, local faculty and students present their work in an informal setting. Bring your lunch;
  • the macro workshop is set for most Wednesdays at 12:20pm, with presentations on macroeconomics, broadly defined, and sometimes on very preliminary research. Bring your lunch, and non-macroeconomists are also welcome;
  • Other, irregular activities are also listed on the seminar page. They include the Austin Forum, a new event sponsored by the Austin Chair in Economics, and a reunion of graduate alumni.

Winter 2010 Issue of The Connecticut Economy Highlights Education and Economic Recovery

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Like other states, Connecticut is still wrestling with the effects of the current recession. The latest issue of The Connecticut Economy, published by the Department of Economics, features Managing Editor Steven Lanza’s analysis of state-level economic resilience. Using the 2001 recession as a source of data, he finds that a variety of factors help to explain the difference in recovery time across the 50 states. He estimates several models that account for about two-thirds of the variation in recovery times in the earlier recession, but unfortunately none of the models points to a very quick recovery for Connecticut in the current recession.

Co-editor Arthur Wright diagnoses how President Obama’s stimulus bill has made a difference in education and transportation in Connecticut, both important sectors for long-run growth. Wright also questions what might happen when state taxpayer funds are used to replace the federal stimulus dollars to sustain ongoing projects and programs. The centerfold map of the Winter issue shows the variation in federal stimulus spending per person across the state’s 169 towns. As of November, the heaviest stimulus spending per capita had occurred in poorer urbanized areas and towns with considerable transportation infrastructure.

Connecticut, like other states, has recognized the long-term role of education in determining a state’s quality of life and economic performance. A guest commentary from Michael P. Meotti, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Higher Education, argues for increasing the educational attainment of the state’s citizens, emphasizing that “the knowledge and skills of our people will be the driving force of the Connecticut economy over the long term.” Two of the issue’s articles assess various aspects of the state’s educational system.

With nearly 58 percent of all Connecticut municipal spending earmarked for schools, recent cutbacks have forced educators to make do with less. Yet, despite these fiscal pressures, a study measuring the efficiency of the state’s high school districts, by co-editor Dennis Heffley and UConn graduate student Can Bekaroglu, finds that many districts fare well in preparing students for the SAT Reasoning Test—a primary “assessment tool” used by colleges and universities to evaluate readiness for higher education. Many regional high school districts and some of the familiar “premier” districts top the efficiency list, but a few districts with more modest SAT results are still quite efficient in improving the relative performance of their students. The value-added measure of performance used in the study helps to control for “student inputs,” but further analysis of the results indicates that socioeconomic factors and district size affect the measure of efficiency.

Connecticut boasts 42 colleges and universities and higher-ed enrollment exceeding 180,000; and it is near the top of the class when it comes to educational attainment—4th among states in the share of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree (34.8%) and 3rd in the share of advanced degree holders (15.1%). But contributing editor Bruce Blakey and his son, Robert, point out that there is still plenty of room to improve education in the Nutmeg State. International comparisons have raised concerns about the quality of U.S. education in areas like math and science, although such comparisons sometimes fail to control for the fraction of youth attending school or being tested. Closer to home, however, broad disparities in student backgrounds and resources across the state’s 169 towns result in big differences in test scores, graduation rates, and college attendance.

For free access to this and other issues of The Connecticut Economy, visit: http://cteconomy.uconn.edu/.

Economics Major Wins Outreach Award

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Joseph Antelmi, an Honors student majoring in Economics, is the 2009 student recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. Provost Peter Nicholls announced the winners of the awards at a reception on December 9.

A resident of Suffield, Joe is active in a wide variety of outreach and engagement. He is on the board of directors of the Hartford non-profit End Hunger CT!, and has been involved with numerous public-interest organizations both on and off campus. The son of Italian immigrants, Joe is especially interested in immigration issues, and worked as a research assistant for History Professor Mark Overmeyer-Velasquez in creating an Honors course on migrant workers in Connecticut.

Joe has received a number of other University awards, including the Spirer/Drucker Humanitarian Award and the Audrey Beck scholarship, the latter given by the Economics Department. He was also one 14 students chosen for the 2009 UConn Leadership Legacy Experience, an endowed program that identifies and mentors top student leaders on campus. (Another Economics major, Phil Gorecki, is also in the 2009 Legacy cohort, and junior major Rafael Perez-Segura has been chosen for the 2010 cohort.)

Joe is carrying a 3.9 grade-point average, and was a University nominee for the Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, and Truman scholarships. Next semester he will be studying abroad in Greece. And in what little spare time he has, he fronts a rock group called Exit 47.

Recent graduate works on the economics of obesity

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Marina-Selini Katsaiti has recently completed her graduate studies at the Department of Economics of the University of Connecticut. Her PhD thesis, “Three Essays on the Economics of Obesity,” focused on different aspects relating to the economics of obesity (happiness, macroeconomic issues, health care costs). Selini defended her thesis in September 2009 under the significant and very valuable assistance and support of her advisor, Prof. Zimmermann, and associate advisors, Prof. Heffley and Prof. Randolph. Pieces of her thesis were presented in many international economics conferences and a section has been published in a book. In addition, an article outside her thesis, “Corruption and Growth Under Weak Identification,” co-authored with fellow graduates Philip Shaw and Marius Jurgilas has been accepted for publication by Economic Inquiry.

Selini is currently working as a researcher at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), in the Department of Economics. In addition, she is working as an independent researcher for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a think tank in Belgium. Her research topics of interest include: economic growth, behavioral economics, corruption, trust and risk issues, and health economics.

Prof. Randolph works with UN Human Rights Commission

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The Right to Development, as established by the UN General Assembly in the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, enjoys growing international support. However the normative content of the right, though often referred to in international fora, has remained relatively opaque, and there has been concomitant difficulty for Member States and other actors both in determining the duties inherent in the right and in assessing whether or not those duties are being met at national and international levels.

Prof. Randolph has been commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to assist the High Level Task Force of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Right to Development in addressing that difficulty, and in particular in devising criteria to assess the implementation of the right. Working together with Maria Green, a lawyer specializing in Human Rights, her mandate is threefold: first, to establish a well-defined set of contours for the Right to Development to aid in effective operationalization and assessment; second, to devise a methodology for determining criteria, sub-criteria and indicators for use in
assessing implementation of the right; and third, to propose specific criteria, sub-criteria and indicators that might eventually be used as a basis for guidelines or a legal instrument on the right. The mandate additionally requires that the specific indicators proposed respond to the priority concerns of the international community as identified by the Working Group on the Right to Development including and going beyond those enumerated in Millennium Development Goal 8.

Update on Monteith building replacement

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The building currently housing the Economics and Political Science departments, named for Henry R. Monteith, has been slated for replacement for many years. The building was erected in the 1950’s and was supposed to last twenty years, to accomodate the temporary increase in enrollments due to the GI Bill. Along with its twin, Arjona, it house five departments and 40 classrooms. Both buildings have structural issues, lack of energy efficiency, leaking roofs and an internal design that mixes classrooms and offices and creates a noisy environment.

Arjona and Monteith will be replaced by two buildings. The first, “West,” will be a pure classroom building with 17 classrooms and two large lecture halls of 200 and 400 seats. It will also feature a three story atrium. West will be located on the grounds of the former Pharmacy building, between the Student Union and the CUE building. A groundbreaking ceremony has now been scheduled for December 3, with construction set to complete in March 2011. Construction on the second building, “East,” should start right after this completion on the grounds of the old Co-op, between the Babbidge Library and the Hawley Armory. East will feature 18 classrooms, a 200-seat lecture hall and offices for five academic departments. East should be inaugurated in the Spring of 2013.

When Stockton speaks, Bernanke listens

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When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke speaks about economic issues, the nation listens. But who does Bernanke listen to?

One person on the short list is David J. Stockton ’76 B.A., ’76 M.A., who speaks almost daily with Bernanke in his role as chief economist for the Fed, the agency that directs the nation’s central bank, establishes national monetary policy and monitors the country’s economic health.

As director of the Federal Reserve’s Division of Research and Statistics, Stockton oversees one of the world’s largest economic research teams – approximately 290 economists, financial analysts, computer scientists, research assistants and other personnel. Stockton and his staff sort through and interpret information streaming from the country’s financial markets each day. One of Stockton’s primary responsibilities is presenting periodic economic forecasts to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on job losses, housing wealth and business spending. These reports help to determine how much you pay in interest on your credit card and how much banks may charge you for taking out home or auto loans.

Read more in the UConn Alumni Magazine.

Not Available in Storrs: Will McEachern Catches Up

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I’ve been asked to let you know what’s been going on since I left the Department. This is the first in what may turn out to be occasional “where-are-they-now” entries from emeritus professors. If you have read this UConn Econ Blog much, you know it’s usually written in the third person (it’s not so much a blog as a bulletin board). Writing in the third person is good for keeping up with those who don’t want to toot their own horn (or who don’t want to appear to be tooting their own horn). But the first person works better for me.

Even though I taught more than ten thousand students at UConn and worked alongside more than one hundred TAs, I am probably a stranger to current students. So please bear with me through this one paragraph of background. In 1973 Dennis Heffley and I joined the faculty. Bill Lott had already been on board three years. In 1981, I was appointed the Department’s first official Director of Graduate Studies. One promising graduate applicant at the time was a Wesleyan student named Thomas Miceli. He turned down our fellowship offer, choosing Brown instead. (Mmmm…I wonder what ever happened to him?) I regularly taught the graduate course in State and Local Finance. Students taking that course included Rex Santerre, now a UConn finance professor, John DeStefano, now New Haven’s long-serving mayor, Barry Feldman, now UConn’s VP and COO, and David Stockton, now head of research for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, where he oversees a dozen divisions and more than a hundred Ph.D.s. Along the way, I also received the UConn Alumni Association’s Distinguished Public Service Award and later its Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

I decided to retire from UConn after my wife left me. But let’s back up a bit. In the late 1990s, Pat had a wonderful opportunity to run Aetna’s Hong Kong insurance business, an operation with thousands of employees and some interesting challenges in light of Hong Kong’s reversion from Great Britain to China. But I was then in the middle of several projects and couldn’t leave. So we agreed that she would move to Hong Kong, I would remain in Connecticut, and we would have a commuter marriage.

One good thing about living twelve time zones apart is that we could meet at either end or anywhere in between. Besides reunions in Hong Kong and Connecticut, we got together in Orlando, Las Vegas, Phoenix, London, and Tokyo. But all that jet-setting gets old fast when you want to be together (parting may be “sweet sorrow,” but it’s still parting and still sad). So in 2000, I decided to take early retirement to join Pat in Hong Kong. It wasn’t that I disliked my teaching, my research, my students, or my colleagues. We just wanted to be together.

We lived in a high rise on Hong Kong Island, within walking distance to just about everything (the only thing within walking distance of our Willington home was the mail box, and that was some walk). One opportunity turned into another for Pat, and she joined Sun Life Insurance as head of investments for its Asia operations. She was based in Hong Kong and responsible for company investments there as well as Mainland China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines (all developing economies, to be sure, but they comprise more than a third of the world’s population). She traveled a lot to those countries on business, and together we traveled for fun to Mainland China, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan. We also flew to Egypt and cruised down the Nile.

Hong Kong was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but the longer we were away, the more we missed America, especially the clearer air (pollution poured into Hong Kong from factories in Southern China). So after Pat had spent about six years in Hong Kong (and I, about four and a half), we decided to return to the United States. But where to live? Our Hong Kong experience framed that choice—warm climate, high-rise living, and within walking distance of most activities. Because Pat, who grew up in Arizona, had spent nearly three decades braving New England winters with me, we decided on a warmer climate in general and on Phoenix in particular. We returned to the U.S. in 2007 and now live on the 12th floor of a high-rise condominium in the Biltmore area of Phoenix.

We love it here. I’m attaching a photo taken just as we were leaving for Starbucks, which is only a hundred yards away. Sure the summers are hot, but that’s a good time to travel, and the low humidity makes it more hospitable for us than in Hong Kong, which at times could be really oppressive. Again, it’s all framing. We still run for an hour six mornings a week and try to stay in working order.

Pat is now on what she calls a “career break,” and she enjoys the free time. Since leaving UConn, I revised my principles of economics textbook for seventh and eighth editions and am now beginning a ninth. I continue writing The Teaching Economist, my newsletter for college teachers, and I’ve managed to publish some other research. Also, my National Tax Journal piece on the median-voter model was selected for inclusion in the edited volume Public Choice Economics published by the University of Michigan Press (others in that volume include some heroes of mine—Mancur Olson, Ray Fair, Avinash Dixit & Barry Nalebuff, Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, and Dennis Mueller).

My principles textbook has been translated into Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, and Spanish (twice), and an Australian adaptation is in its third edition. Micro and Macro versions of the book were also selected as the economics principles entries for Cengage Learning’s Four Letter Press series (they had a dozen principles books to choose from). I worked on those adaptations, which just appeared in second editions as ECON Micro 2 and ECON Macro 2. Finally, shortly after I left UConn, I was asked to write a principles textbook for high school students; I did that and later revised the book for a second edition; a third edition is scheduled for 2011.

I try to keep in touch with colleagues and former students, but I could do a lot better. I’d be glad to hear from you at william.mceachern@uconn.edu. Also look for Pat and me at the January ASSA meetings in Atlanta.

What an interesting time to be an economist!

Daniel Landau’s Retirement

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Professor Daniel Landau has announced that he will be retiring from the Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut’s Waterbury Campus on January 1, 2010 after twenty eight and half years of service at the University of Connecticut. Dan joined the Department as an Assistant Professor in 1981 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1989. Dan toiled alone as the lone economist at the Waterbury Campus. Although sequestered at there, Dan was a frequent participant in Department seminars and meetings at the University’s Storrs campus during his early years with the University.

Dan began his education with a B.A. from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received his doctoral degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1974. Following his graduation, Dan accepted an Assistant Professorship at Haifa University in Israel where he served until 1979. The following two years saw Dan serve as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto before moving to the University of Connecticut in 1981. From 1982 to 1985, Dan was also a Visiting Research Associate in Yale University’s Economic Growth Center.

During his career, Dan was a productive researcher who left his mark on the profession. He published five books and monographs during years from 1974 to 2009. He was also the author of 20 professional journal articles. His articles appeared in such journals as Economic Development & Cultural Change, Quarterly Review of Economics & Finance, World Development, Public Choice and History of Political Economy. Dan was also the author or coauthor of three technical Reports.

Dan will be missed by the Department and thousands of students who benefited from his knowledge during his tenure with the University of Connecticut at Waterbury. The Department wishes him good health, pleasant times and fond memories during his retirement from the University.