Three of our PhD students, Zhonghui Zhang, Huarui Jing, and Rui Sun, will be presenting their research at the New York Camp Econometrics XIV poster session in April:
“Mahalanobis Metric Based Clustering for Fixed Effects Model,” Chihwa Kao (University of Connecticut), Min-Seong Kim (University of Connecticut), and Zhonghui Zhang (University of Connecticut).
“The Robustness Study of Sieve Estimation on Asset Pricing Model,” Huarui Jing (University of Connecticut).
“Bias-Corrected Estimators in the Dynamic Panel Data Model,” Chihwa Kao (University of Connecticut), Long Liu (University of Texas- San Antonio) and Rui Sun (University of Connecticut).
Zhonghui Zhang will be presenting his paper “Mahalanobis Metric Based Clustering for Fixed Effects Model”.
Rui Sun’s paper “Bias-Corrected Estimators in the Dynamic Panel Data Model” has been accepted for poster session.
The conference, June 14-16, 2019 at Xiamen University, is held by the Econometric Society, the international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics.
Graduate students Shiyi Chen, Edlira Cocoli, Treena Goswami, Xin Liang, and Patralekha Ukil presented papers at the Annual Conference of the Eastern Economics Association in New York, Feb. 28–Mar. 3. Paper titles are listed below. If you see them in the hallways, be sure to ask them about their research.
Shiyi Chen: Affirmative Action and Interracial Marriage
Edlira Cocoli: The Impact of Promise Programs on Student Enrollment: A Nationwide Analysis of Enrollment Impact by Gender, Race and Program Type
Treena Goswami: High Skilled Immigrant Inflows and More Managerial Natives?
Xin Liang: Early Retirement, Pension System and the High Saving Rate in China, University of Connecticut
Patralekha Ukil: Parental Economic Shocks and Infant Health
Have a look at a tweet about Patralekha’s presentation here, and you can see the full EEA program here.
Professors Natalia Smirnova (UConn PhD 2004) and Oskar Harmon organized and participated in the panel “College Fed Challenge: Impact on Students’ Knowledge Acquisition”.
Among the panelists were faculty advisers and team captains from three NY Federal Reserve Region teams, including the captain of the UConn Stamford team, Jonathan Herrick.
For more information about the panel discussion click here.
Professor Stephen Ross’s paper “Partners in Crime,” examining the effect of neighborhoods and school on criminal partnerships, was featured this past week in the AEA Research Highlights
Professor Subhash Ray’s paper THE TRANSFORMATION FUNCTION, TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY, AND THE CCR RATIO is forthcoming in a special issue of European Journal of Operational Research commemorating the introduction of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) into the Operations Research/Management Science literature forty years back by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR). European Journal of Operational Research is a highly rated peer reviewed journal with an impact factor of 3.426 and a 5-year impact factor 0f 3.96.
DEA is a nonparametric method of evaluating productive efficiency without assuming any explicit production, cost, or profit function. It is particularly useful for benchmarking the performance of non-commercial organizations like schools, hospitals, police departments, etc.
Professor Ray has been an active researcher in this area for decades and is internationally recognized for his book Data Envelopment Analysis written from the viewpoint of neoclassical production economics. Published in 2004 by Cambridge University Press, it continues to be a major reference/textbook for serious researchers. In 2016 he received the W.W. Cooper Lifetime Contribution Award from the International DEA Society (iDEAs).
Professor Nishith Prakash has received the “World Bank Economic Review Excellence in Refereeing Award”, recognizing his service to the journal World Bank Economic Review.
The mission ofThe World Bank Economic Reviewis to encourage and support research in the field of development economics. We seek to publish and disseminate innovative theoretical and empirical research that identifies, analyzes, measures, and evaluates the macro and micro-economic forces that promote or impede economic development with a view towards providing the knowledge necessary for designing, implementing, and sustaining effective development policies in low and middle income countries. Our intended audience comprises a worldwide readership of economists and other social scientists in government, business, international agencies, universities, and research institutions.
Professor Ross, with coauthors Billing and Deming, finds strong evidence of very localized neighborhood effects in both the commission of crimes and the creation of criminal partnerships among older teenagers and young adults (within 1/2 KM).
These localized effects appear to facilitated by relationships created within schools, and do not exist between youth who live very close to each other, but were resided on opposite sides of the same school attendance zone.
The UConn-Stamford FED Challenge team earned honorable mention in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2018 College FED Challenge competition. This marked the third consecutive year of participation in the competition by the Stamford Campus team and the first time advancing to the semi-final round. The competition started with 39 teams in the initial round on October 24. The UCONN-Stamford team advanced to the semi-final round held on November 14 among only eight teams. Rutgers University-New Brunswick placed first and advanced to the final round held in Washington DC November 29. Columbia University placed second. UConn-Stamford earned Honorable Mention along with Fairfield University, Fordham University, Siena College, and SUNY-Oneonta.
The College Fed Challenge is a team competition for undergraduate students. Teams analyze economic and financial conditions and formulate a monetary policy recommendation, modeling the Federal Open Market Committee. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of four Federal Reserve Banks that host the College Fed Challenge Competition. The regional winners go to the final round at the Board of Governors in Washington D.C.
UCONN-Stamford team was comprised of 3 presenters: Ignacio Gonzalez, Jonathan Herrick, and Brendan Armburst-Mulcahey. The team coach was Di Yang, (Stamford Business School MBA). The researchers who helped prepare the team for the competition were Aditya Dadavai, Sijie Hu, Lingyi Zhu, and Roma Roma (all in the Stamford Business School BPMA Program). Faculty advisors were professors Natalia Smirnova, Steven Lanza, Kanda Naknoi, and Oskar Harmon. The team benefited from practice sessions of challenging questions with volunteer members of the Fairfield Business Community.
The team participants shown in the picture at the awards ceremony at the FRBNY are (from left to right): Brendan Armburst-Mulcahey, Di Yang, Natalia Smirnova, Jonathan Herrick, Ignacio Gonzalez, Oskar Harmon.
Dr. Smirnova’s article “Teaching Money and Inflation Across the Curriculum” came out online on January 2 in The Social Studies, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles of interest to educators at all levels. The article describes the outcomes of a program for K-12 teachers that she created while serving as Director of Education at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). The program uses the Economics-Across-the-Curriculum approach which encourages the integration of economic concepts into various disciplines.
Dr. Smirnova has long been an advocate for bringing economic and financial literacy education to a wider audience. This publication is her fourth in the series of articles describing the impact of this unique approach on knowledge acquisition and showcasing creative lessons that were field-tested by teachers. In her articles, she demonstrates that any subject area can be a fruitful ground for the infusion of economic concepts and for making lessons relevant and meaningful to students.
This latest publication features several lesson ideas for teaching about money and inflation to high-school students. These lessons were incorporated in algebra, American history, and Spanish language classes. The main beauty of the lessons presented in the article is the empowerment of students to apply economics to their everyday life. The article also presents details on how to setup a professional development workshop for teachers and how to inspire them to create and field-test an economic concept integration idea.