Alumni

A female pioneer in our Master’s program

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Therese Comcowich Lucas earned her master’s degree in economics in 1952. She was the first woman to do so, and she was the first female teaching assistant in economics. The male graduate students in economics then named the group after a comic strip: Terry and her pirates. The Ansonia native now lives in retirement in Tucson, Arizona, but she criss-crossed the country over the years, following her husband’s job moves while she maintained her own active career as an economist and consultant.

Read more on the UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni site.

Monica has her hands full

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We enjoy keeping tabs on our former students. We’re not nosey—it’s just fun to hear what they’ve been up to. We recently caught up with Monica Tedeschi Cantor (BA ’94; MA ’95), who is currently taking a stay-at-home “breather” with 2 year-old twins, Melanie and Henry, and her 14 year-old dog, Makita. But, if Monica is getting any rest, it’s certainly well deserved.

Never exactly the lazy sort, during her UConn days Monica belonged to crew and the Russian Club and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, Special Olympics and local halfway houses. Her undergraduate Honors thesis on privatization in Bulgaria drew upon her summer internship with a World Bank consultant in Sofia, and her MA thesis focused on the determinants of health status in developing countries. She graduated Magna Cum Laude as an Honors Scholar in Economics and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and then completed her MA in Economics in 1995.

Monika worked in New York for the next 5 years, including 3 years as an Assistant Treasurer at Chase Manhattan Bank, performing profit and loss analyses of financial derivatives. She also worked for 2 years at Mitsui & Co. as a Trading Assistant in the execution of corn, soybean and soybean oil future trades.

Returning to school in 2000, Monica spent the next two years at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she worked on the Journal of International Affairs, received a foreign language scholarship and studied French in Nice. She also received a program assistant fellowship during her second year and completed two research internships with the United Nations, focusing particularly on U.N / private sector partnerships.

From 2002 to 2004, Monica worked as an Analyst and Senior Analyst at the New York City Office of Management and Budget (NYCOMB), helping to oversee the City’s budgetary process in regards to the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the NYC Planning Department, and the NYC Building Department. Responsibilities included budget and personnel analyses, meeting with senior officials, and management of internal processes.

Monika then joined NYCEDC—a quasi-public agency under the direction of a President and the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayor. NYCEDC develops and implements programs and capital projects that foster economic growth in the City, including job creation. From 2004-2005 she worked in the Strategic Planning Department, where two of her major projects included a program to help ensure Minority and Women Business-Owned Enterprises (MWBEs) had a voice at NYCEDC and throughout City agencies, and a recommendation to the Mayor on how to approach Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs).

Later, as a Financial Strategist and Vice President in the Budget Department (2005-2007), she helped oversee and manage a team of ten budget analysts that carried out NYCEDC‘s fiscal responsibilities. They initiated strategic alliances between departments such as the Real Estate Group and the Capital Projects Group, and between agencies such as NYCEDC’s Economic Group and NYC Office of Management and Budget’s Economic Group. One of the most significant projects included research and recommendations to the President and the Mayor on Tax Incentive Financing (TIFs).

You can see why we’re hoping Monica will be able to participate in one of the professional experience panels at our forthcoming Graduate Reunion and Forum, scheduled for April 2, 2010. Children and pets are welcome too!

Alumnus endows Honors scholarship

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Following in the footsteps of a philanthropist who helped make his college education possible, Michael Alpert ’90 has established a scholarship to help high-achieving undergraduate students succeed at the University of Connecticut. Alpert and his wife, Ariana Napier, have committed $25,000 for a need-based scholarship for honors students.

The benefits of scholarships exceed financial assistance. Scholarships recognize students’ accomplishments and promise and can incentivize them to succeed.

“I was twice awarded the Louis D. Traurig Scholarship for excellence in economics. Not only was the financial support very welcomed, but it represented an example of collegiate academic achievement,” says Alpert. “That’s why it’s also something that remains on my resume today. I strongly believe that awards like this as well as the distinction of the Honors Program gave me a leg up when I applied and was accepted to the Wharton School of Business and also aided me in the competitive world of Wall Street.”

Traurig attended UConn in the 1910s. The prominent banker and civic leader, who died in 1984, served on the UConn Foundation’s Board of Directors from 1973 to 1979. When he established the Traurig Scholarship in 1973, it was one of the largest endowed scholarships held by the foundation. Traurig wanted to support economics students at the top of their class, and his scholarship is still doing so today.

Read more at Our Moment, the UConn Foundation’s e-newsletter.

Posted in BA

Attention Grad Alumni

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In March 2008, the Department hosted a Graduate Reunion and Forum at the Bishop Center. At the one-day event, some of our former PhD students presented their recent research, while others employed by government or the private sector described their work in professional experience panels. We are planning to host a similar event on Friday, April 2, 2010, preceded by two other events you may wish to attend.

The first is the Philip E. Austin Forum on Economics and Public Policy, which will be held at 4:00 on Thursday, April 1, 2010, in the Student Union Auditorium. This is an inaugural event, which will feature a lecture on climate change policy by Harvard environmental economist Robert Stavins (see details in separate blog entry).

After the Austin Forum, at 7:00 PM on Thursday evening, the Department will hold its Annual Awards Banquet at the Bishop Center. In addition to recognizing the achievements of some of our outstanding undergraduates and graduate students, we’ll be honoring Bill Lott, who will be leaving the Department this spring after 40 years of outstanding service to the University.

We currently are looking for volunteers to present papers and participate in the professional experience panels, so please let us know if you would be interested in taking part. A brief note to Dennis.Heffley@uconn.edu will suffice. We’ll be forwarding more information by email, so if you think you may not be on our current list, or if you have recently changed your email address, please contact us.

Finally, if you would like to catch up on (and keep up with) the activities of the Department’s students, faculty members, and alumni, continue to visit the Blog. At the bottom of each page, you can scroll back to earlier entries, which also can be accessed by clicking on the links listed on the left side of this page.

We hope to see you in April!

Very best wishes,
Dennis Heffley

Recent PhD grad to publish in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

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Recent graduate James Boudreau, advised by Vicki Knoblauch, will publish the paper “Stratification and Growth in Agent-Based Matching Markets” in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. The relationship between economic mobility and growth has long been a focus of economists’ attention, and James’ paper contributes to that literature by emphasizing the dynamic impacts of two-sided matching.

The model economy in the paper features heterogeneous agents that compete in an intergenerational match game for employment. Agents known as workers make productivity-enhancing investments, using their endowed wealth to add to pre-existing ability levels as they compete to match with other agents known as firms. A novel feature of the model is its use of the market’s matching process as an evolutionary fitness selection mechanism. Workers that are unable to find a match drop out of the population and thus do not contribute to current or future productive capacity. Those that do match are able to pass on their attributes, but in a manner that is not fully deterministic. Because of the stochastic element to inheritance, results are arrived at by way of agent-based simulations. Even with perfect information and substantial variety in both offspring and entrants, two-sided matching inevitably causes the population to evolve into stratified groups. Corrective measures are possible to improve mobility, but by altering the path of market evolution, a policy may have unintended impacts on growth and inequality.

Phd Alumnus joins University of Reading

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Anupam Nanda, 2006 PhD alumnus in Economics, has joined the faculty of Real Estate and Planning, Henley Business School at University of Reading (United Kingdom), one of the world’s leading centers for real estate education and research. His doctoral dissertation was advised by Prof. Stephen Ross, Prof. John Clapp, and Prof. Dennis Heffley. Previously, he worked with Deloitte , Market Intelligence group in Mumbai, and the Economics group of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) in Washington DC. His research papers have appeared in Journal of Urban Economics and The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Anupam’s research interests are in real estate economics, empirical finance as well as urban economics and local public finance. He is currently working on the minimum services mandate for the real estate brokers.

BA Alumnus endows fund for Honors Program

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An alumni couple who felt compelled to give back to the University of Connecticut for the education they received will now make a similar difference in the lives of future honors students. Robert ’68 and Carlotta ’68 Holster have contributed more than $1 million to fund an endowment for the Honors Program.

“Building on the quality of our outstanding Honors Program is a key strategy to attract the very best and brightest students to the University of Connecticut. This wonderful gift will enable us to expand the opportunities for students to have a truly enriched experience, and will enable us to provide the quality of undergraduate education that our top students have come to expect,” says Provost Peter Nicholls.

A self-described “curious but indifferent” student when he started college, Mr. Holster was excited by the Honors Program. He credits his professors during his first year with inspiring a lifelong passion for learning and preparing him for success throughout his life.

“They were talented, engaged with their material and their students, and it was infectious,” Mr. Holster recalls. “Those freshman courses in economics, English literature and history armed me with models for thinking about things that assisted me later in the Army and in graduate school, and remain relevant to this day in business.”

After graduating from UConn with a B.A. in economics, Mr. Holster served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army and then earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University, where he was a Samuel Bronfman fellow. He is chairman of the board and former chief executive officer of HMS Holdings Corp. HMS coordinates health care benefits between government entitlement programs (e.g., Medicaid) and the health insurance industry, working with more than 40 states and the federal government. Mr. Holster was elected to the UConn Foundation’s Board of Directors in 2009.

Read more at the University of Connecticut Foundation.

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship established

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Timothy Holt ’75, chairman of the Board of Directors of the University of Connecticut Foundation, is supporting his two great passions—economics and Huskies basketball—with a major campaign gift. Holt and his wife, Beverly, have committed $401,000 including $150,000 to establish the Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship and $251,000 toward the fund for a new basketball practice facility.

Holt, retired senior vice president and chief investment officer at Aetna, credits his education at UConn for helping with his professional success. He was elected to the Foundation’s board in 2001 and assumed the chairmanship in 2009. Additionally, he was inducted into the UConn School of Business Hall of Fame in 2005.

“I received my education at UConn, and I’m grateful for that. That’s why I’m giving back. I’d like to help other people receive as good an education as I did,” Holt says. “UConn stands out for its ability to give people the opportunity to receive an excellent education.”

Holt, who earned a B.A. in economics from UConn and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, wanted to support an area the economics department is seeking to expand. The Holt Economics Fellowship will provide essential support for graduate students who are conducting research, teaching undergraduate classes and preparing to be the next generation of leaders in the field.

“When I was an undergraduate student at UConn, I majored in economics, and so I wanted to do something that would benefit the economics department. We talked to them about what would be the most helpful in achieving their strategic goals. Graduate student support is one of their highest priorities,” Holt says.

Read more at the University of Connecticut Foundation

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.

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.