Recent PhD graduate Fei Zou has published “Does Early Retirement Really Benefit Women?” in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.
This paper grew out of Fei’s PhD dissertation completed at UConn (2019) under the supervision of Professor Kai Zhao. It is a joint work with Dr. Hyun Lee (former UConn faculty), and Professor Zhao.
In this paper, the authors quantitatively evaluate the welfare consequences of China’s gender-specific mandatory retirement policy using a calibrated overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents and incomplete markets. They find that while it is intended to relieve women from work earlier and to provide them with more years of public pensions benefits than men, early mandatory retirement reduces welfare for women.
The published version of this paper can be found at:
Launched in June 2020, the National Association of Business Economists (NABE) Scholars program expands on current NABE Foundation scholarship programs by providing scholarships to NABE conferences specifically to minority students and early-career economists to attend NABE conferences and events.
Alex recently graduated from UConn, earning his Master of Science in Quantitative Economics (MSQE) in December of 2021. We recently spoke with Alex to hear his reflections on the benefits of the program, his experience with the NABE conferences, and his advice for current (and potential) students.
We asked him: Why did you choose UConn?
“In high school, two of my most influential teachers were UConn Alumni. They encouraged me to check out UConn’s programs, and I knew I wanted to attend somewhere on the East Coast (having lived in Texas, California and China). I attended first as an undergrad, then decided to continue with MSQE program.”
Alex feels the MSQE program prepared him well, equipping him with tangible skills that he will be using regularly: Practice in coding with Python, R, and Stata; working with machine learning models; prediction models; and convex optimization. He credits Professor Oskar Harmon’s Writing and Communication for Economics and Business class, as well as UConn’s Career Center, for preparing him for the dozens of interviews he has been going on as he enters the job market. “The MSQE program prepared me well for the technical questions, and the Career Center helped prepare me for the behavioral questions.”
Through the NABE Scholarship program, Alex was able to attend conferences in Washington D.C. that allowed him attend discussions with representatives from top companies on pressing current issues such as the supply chain, and the future of transportation. He enjoyed the opportunity to meet in-person, and make connections with leaders in the industry. “I realize how important networking is, as well as the importance of constant learning.”
Alex encourages current and potential students to use the resources UConn provides and to never stop practicing to keep your skills sharp. He intends to take the CBE exam in the coming months, and looks forward to taking the next steps in his career.
Check out these scholarship opportunities and more by visiting the NABE website here, and thank you Alex Gu for your enthusiasm and insight.
The 2022 NABE Scholar application process will open in late March/early April – stay tuned for details!
UConn students who are awarded a scholarship to attend a NABE event can apply to the MSQE Scholarship Program (contact Lisa Foss for details) to partially offset travel and lodging costs.
Nursing homes are really struggling. We all witnessed the devastating number of Covid deaths in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. Now, nursing homes are toiling with labor shortages that make it very difficult to provide adequate care for residents. While the immediate impacts of the pandemic will eventually stabilize, in the coming decades, nursing homes will need to cope with increases in the demand for their services as baby boomers age. How will an industry that has struggled to hire and keep enough workers even before the pandemic be able to address the increasing care needs of an aging population?
One potential solution: A more open immigration policy. Professor Delia Furtado’s new research shows that nursing homes in areas receiving more immigrants are able to provide better quality care for residents. She talked about why this might be on The Indicator Podcast. Part of this interview aired on All Things Considered.
In related work, PhD student Treena Goswami finds that older college-educated native-born women remain in the labor force longer when they live in areas with more immigrants. Her analysis suggests that when immigrants are available to provide inexpensive care-giving or housekeeping services, older women (who can afford these services) do not have to prematurely leave the labor force in order to provide full time care for loved ones. Further evidence that policies allowing for more immigration might help the U.S. address the care-giving needs of an aging population.
Leshui completed his thesis at UConn in 2013 under the supervision of Professors Richard Langlois, Robert Gibbons, Christian Zimmermann, and Vicki Knoblauch.
He started his position as an Assistant Professor at Bates College in 2015, and works primarily in the fields of organizational economics and industrial organization. He is also working on research projects on education with Professor Stephen L. Ross.
Professor Ray has recently published a paper “Nonparametric measurement of potential gains from mergers: an additive decomposition and application to Indian bank mergers” coauthored with his recent PhD student Shilpa Sethia in Journal of Productivity Analysis. JPA is considered to be the top ranked journal in the field of Production Economics. As reported by William Greene, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, the 2020 impact factor of JPA (2.61) exceeded several highly respected field journals like Journal of Econometrics (2.388) or Journal of Applied Econometrics (2.424).
His coauthor, Shilpa Sethia, who is a 2019 Econ PhD from UCONN, is currently employed as a Senior Economic Analyst at National Grid in Waltham, MA.
MSQE Program alumni Claudia Rodriguez (MSQE December 2019) and Jonathan Gonzalez (MSQE December 2019) participated in a virtual MSQE Alumni Networking Panel on April 29th.
Claudia currently works at Moody’s Investor Service, as a Structured Finance Associate Analyst, where she works on the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities team, and the Collateralized Loan Obligations team.
Jonathan currently works for a Connecticut Non-Profit advocacy group. He is currently providing data analytics research support for advocacy of Connecticut Senate Bill 842 An Act Concerning Health Insurance and Health Care in Connecticut.
They spoke highly of their MSQE training in Python, and R, the value of networking and recommended applying for summer internships. In conversation about deadlines, it was mentioned that in industry meeting deadlines is crucial, not like class deadlines where professors’ give extensions.
While the department is not able to celebrate with an awards banquet this year, we still are able to recognize the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty! This year’s award recipients are:
Undergraduate Awards
Economics Department General Scholarship
Jasmine Kuyateh-Banks
Melissa Mendez
Kelly-Anne Moffa
Joslin Valiyaveettil
Clare Wieduwilt
Linge Yang
Michael Zhu
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Lauren Pawlowski
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Ryan Durrell
Cole Ensinger
Yue Sun
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Kader Akpinar
Susan Bailey
Prasad Gosavi
SeSe Nguyen
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Brendan Adams
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Linge Yang
Charles Triano Scholarship
Matthew Petridis
Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship
Kelly-Anne Moffa
Benjamin Scudder
Kira Smith
Alexander Taylor
Joslin Valiyaveettil
Clare Wieduwilt
Michael Zhu
Robert J. Monte Scholarship
Isadore Johnson
Ross Mayer Scholarship
John Peterson
Ajshe Zulfi
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Jinsoon Cho
Jingwei Huang
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Miranda Mendiola Valdez
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Yijia Gao
Anastassiya Karaban
Ha Kyeong Lee
Kunze Li
Ghania Shuaib
Jiaqi Wang
Yangkeun Yun
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Umesh Ghimire
Economics Department General Scholarship
Tiange Du
Xuejian Gong
Ruohan Huang
Benjamin Taraskevich
Ziyun Wu
Yizhi Zhu
Best Third Year Paper Award
Lindsey Buck, awarded for her paper “Head Start Improves Health and Welfare 25 Years After Participation”
Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
Faisal Algosair
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen
Erdal Asker
Birenda Budha
Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Treena Goswami
Huarui Jing
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Xizi Li
Tongan Liu
Deepak Saraswat
Rui Sun
Victor Volkman
Jinning Wang
Haoxiang Xu
Heli Xu
Heshan Zhang
Wei Zheng
Two alumni of the MSQE Program participated in a virtual MSQE Alumni Networking Panel on March 18th:
Louis Booth: MSQE Dec 2018
John Rolfe: MSQE Dec 2019
Louis currently works at Travelers, as a Consultant Analytics and Research Development, where he is on the Advanced Tools and Technologies Team. John currently works at Spreetail as a Demand Planner where he does demand forecasting.
They spoke highly of their MSQE training in Python, R, and Tableau, and gave several examples of how they use these skills in their current positions.
On Thursday, February 25th, 2021, UConn Stamford students were treated to a special discussion “Diverse Journeys: Social Sciences Alumni Career Panel” featuring UConn Stamford alumni of color who majored in social sciences and now work in a variety of interesting and diverse careers.
The panelists were:
Daniel Caceres ’14 (CLAS), Real Estate Agent, YB Realty.
Saif Syed ’16 (CLAS), Investment Banking Associate, Goldman Sachs.
Andrea Lopez ’14 (CLAS), Research Associate, Teachers College, Columbia University.
The participants shared candid insights and perspectives about job search and navigating the workplace as a person of color. Panelists also provided perspectives on how their educational experiences at UConn Stamford shaped their career journeys and put them on the path to success.
This event was organized by UConn Stamford — Department of Economics, Department of Political Science, the Center for Career Development, and the Honors Program in partnership with the UConn Foundation.
The recording of the event can be watched using this link.
Aaron Cooke, a 2018 PhD graduate of the UConn Department of Economics, recently became the Chief Economist for Macroeconomic Policy at the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
The CEA, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, is charged with offering the President objective economic advice on the formulation of both domestic and international economic policy.
Aaron earned his PhD degree from the Department of Economics in 2018, specializing in macroeconomics and public policy. His PhD dissertation, “Three Essays on Wealth and Income Inequality”, studied the causes of U.S. wealth and income inequality, and was completed under the supervision of Professor Kai Zhao.
Prior to joining the CEA, Aaron was an economist at the Office of Management and Budget.
