PhD

Alumna Yanna Wu reports on life after UConn

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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke could unfortunately not make it to the “Life after UConn” event organized by the Association of Graduate Students in Economics last Friday. Instead, Yanna Wu spoke.

Dr. Wu graduated with a Ph.D. in economics from UConn in 2004, under the supervision of Prof. Ray. Right after that, she joined PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. in their New York office. She currently is a manager in the transfer-pricing group, which is a part of the tax practice, providing tax and economic consulting services for multinational enterprises on their inter-company pricing arrangements. Transfer pricing is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses accounting, tax, economics, finance, and law. Her main responsibilities include project solicitation and management.

Dr. Wu covered the following topics: (i) the current job market for new Ph.D. graduates in economics; (ii) potential job opportunities; (iii) differences between working in academia and in industry; (iv) how graduate students can prepare for the job market; and (v) her experience. After the lecture, Dr. Wu answered questions from graduate students.

New slate of PhD students going on the job market

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Tao Chen: (Advisor: Tripathi)
My research on econometrics is both theoretical and applied. The theoretical part focuses mainly on microeconometrics and functional data analysis. The applied work is within the fields of labor and urban economics.

Paramita Dhar (Advisor: Ross)
My dissertation examines two different questions about housing and location choice. In the first essay, I apply a difference-in-difference model to capture the causal effect of school quality on house prices by looking at houses located on school district boundaries in Connecticut. The rest of the dissertation deals with detailed spatial analysis of the nature of housing discrimination in the context of multiple minority groups in Los-Angeles using Housing Discrimination Study (2000).

Leshui He (Advisor: Langlois)
My dissertation departs from the standard property rights theory of the firm of Grossman, Hart and Moore and develops the interaction between the ownership of the firm and the ownership of the alienable assets. By defining the ownership of the firm following Alchian and Demsetz (1972), I create a theoretical framework allowing for independent allocations of the two ownership rights. Then I move on and utilize the multi-tasking agent model under this framework to run a level horse race among four alternative organizational forms. The model sheds lights on conditions under which human-capital owned firms can be optimal, and offers tentative explanations to the fact that firms usually collectively own alienable assets.

Nicoleta Iliescu (Advisor: Matschke)
In my job market paper (“US Lobby Activity and Antidumping Outcomes”), I investigate the impact of lobbying on the antidumping practices in the US. Currently, antidumping is the most heavily used temporary tariff measure both worldwide and in the US. Thus, it becomes an appropriate avenue of studying how political pressure shapes the level of protection some domestic industries receive. The empirical results I derive in the paper reinforce the hypothesis that the political clout plays an important role in granting trade protection through antidumping duties.

Nick Jolly (Advisor: Couch)
My dissertation focuses on the consequences of job displacement.  The first paper from my dissertation, which was published in Research on Aging, shows that displaced workers experience larger earnings losses if they are older at the time of job loss.  The second paper examines how earnings losses vary over different phases of the business cycle; the final paper examines how this type of involuntary job loss influences the inter-temporal movement of workers throughout the earnings and income distributions.

Steve Kuchta (Advisor: Miceli)
My dissertation examines the role patent term restoration plays in incentivizing pharmaceutical development and clinical trials behavior. The unique position of pharmaceuticals, who must spend portions of their patent term achieving regulatory approval, forces the effective patent life to balance more interests relative to the standard patenting story. A law and economics approach is utilized to expose the competing dynamics and thereby to provide theoretical foundations for the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act. The modeling also informs current policy discussion regarding adding exclusivity protection to patent protection in the emergent biopharmaceutical industry.

Xiaoming Li (Advisor: Ross)
My dissertation examines the dynamics in the housing and mortgage markets. Specifically I attempt to identify the “true state dependence” from the “spurious state dependence”. In the first essay, I specify a linear probability model to test the neighborhood information externalities in mortgage underwriting. In the second essay, I propose an analytically bias-corrected fixed effects estimator that is robust to the incidental parameters bias for panel fractional response models. In the third essay, I apply the proposed bias-corrected estimator to empirically examine the impact of local housing markets on neighborhood mortgage underwriting.

Shalini Mitra (Advisor: Zimmermann)
My dissertation examines the channels through which volatility of key variables like output, employment, investment and consumption is affected – both at the firm and the aggregate level and their implications. I specifically consider degree of financial development of a nation, research and development expenditure of firms, and the presence of an informal sector.

Zinnia Mukherjee (Advisor: Segerson)
My research is in applied microeconomics. My dissertation essays deal with the design and evaluation of conservation policies, with a specific focus on protection of endangered species. In particular, the three essays analyze (i) the effectiveness of voluntary approaches and the role of background regulatory threat in mitigating stochastic bycatch, (ii) the welfare effects of unilateral bycatch policies in an open economy, and, (iii) the economic impact of the TED regulation (a major U.S. bycatch regulation) on the U.S. shrimp industry. Post dissertation, my research projects include (i) studying the spatial and temporal effects of marine hypoxia on Long Island Sound harvest and fishers’ behavioral responses to the phenomenon, (ii) analyzing the effect of political ideology on state level income inequality for U.S. states, and, (iii) examining the role of U.S. state laws on sexual crime and crime location choice of repeat offenders.

Michael Stone (Advisor: Miceli)
I present a theory which extends the traditional economic model of punitive damages by incorporating litigation costs. Incorporating litigation costs into the model provides a possible justification for punitive damage caps. At the optimum, caps balance deterrence against the cost of litigation. Empirical testing of the model is performed via Cox proportional and parametric hazard analyses, using a panel dataset from 1981 to 2007. The empirical results reveal a positive relationship between judicial and legal expenditures (a proxy for legal costs) and cap enactment, and a negative relationship between state GSP (a proxy for damages) and cap enactment. Cap enactment is also influenced by political ideology.

Parag Waknis (Advisor: Zimmermann)
In my dissertation, I explore the nature of optimal monetary policy under a Leviathan monetary authority. Such a monetary authority is a reality wherever governments rely heavily on seigniorage. In a model based on Lagos and Wright (2005), I characterize a Markov perfect equilibrium as well as equilibrium under reputational concerns for such monetary authority. While, there are multiple equilibriums in general, under certain conditions we can narrow down the set of equilibriums to one and show that it is characterized by higher inflation. I then add one more Leviathan central bank to the model to see if adding a competitive element implies a lower rate of inflation in equilibrium. I plan to use the insights from these models to analyze sub-national spending in developing countries like India. Understanding the policies of such central banks or governments is critical given today’s interdependent global policy environment.

Juan-Pedro Garces defends his dissertation and heads South

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Juan-Pedro Garces defended on 4 August 2010 his dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Susan Randolph. The main topic of his dissertation is how education contributes to economic development. In one of the chapters, he pays special attention to the quality of education, trying to determine whether private schools deliver more educational quality than public ones, with special reference to the case of Chile, his native country. The dissertation also tackles the issue of the influence of population density on productivity, and how is affected by the level of education of the population. For this purpose, the study uses panel data on a sample of more than 100 countries, mostly developing ones. The third chapter of the dissertation focuses on institutions, testing the mainstream literature on the effects of institutional governance on economic growth and development. His work tries to determine the way in which the level of education affects institutional governance, finding a new channel through which education can enhance economic growth.

Juan-Pedro will be a visiting instructor at Wake Forest University, North Carolina.

Gulgun Bayaz-Ozturk defends thesis and heads to CUNY

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Gulgun Bayaz-Ozturk defended her dissertation on July 20, 2010 under the supervision of Prof. Kenneth Couch. Her dissertation titled “Three Essays on Income Inequality” analyzes the contribution of labor market inequality to overall income inequality in the light of demographic changes in the United States from 1970s into the mid 2000s. In addition, she carries out a cross-national comparison and investigates the trends in intra-generational mobility and the underlying factors of educational earnings differentials in the United States and West Germany.

In September, Gulgun starts her new job as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging and Longevity at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Michael Stone defends thesis and heads to Quinnipiac University

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On June 28, 2010, Michael Stone defended his dissertation entitled “Three Essays on the Economics of Tort Law.” Stone’s dissertation focused on three distinct areas relating to tort law: the enactment of caps on punitive damages, the impact of taxable costs statutes on settlement rates, and the optimal level of attorney advertising intensity. In the first of these papers, Stone utilized hazard analysis to uncover some support for an economic model justifying caps on punitive damages, though there was evidence that political pressure by the legal services and insurance industries played a role in cap enactment. In his second essay, Stone utilized an ordinary least squares regression with a wild bootstrap and HC3 correction to find some evidence that taxable costs statutes (laws which permit the victorious party at trial to recover authorized litigation-related expenses from the losing party) decreased the rate of settlement. And, in his final essay, Stone produced a theoretical model which weighed the benefits of deterrence against the costs of litigation and advertising to obtain an optimal level of attorney advertising intensity. Each of these works was prepared under the tutelage of his major advisor, Professor Thomas Miceli.

This fall, Stone will be heading to Quinnipiac University as a visiting assistant professor of economics.

Maroula Khraiche defends thesis, heads to Colorado College

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Maroula Khraiche defended her dissertation on Monday, June 7th 2010. Entitled “Essays on the Economics of Labor Migration,” her dissertation analyzes the macroeconomic effects of migration patterns that are influenced by different types of policy. In particular, she examines the popularity of temporary worker permits based on how the presence of temporary workers affects the earnings of various demographic groups within a host country. She also examines the implications of trade policy, and how reduced trade restrictions can result in increased migration from a country. Finally, she also considers how labor market policies such as the minimum wage can affect migration across sectors with a developing economy. In all her work, conducted under the supervision of her adviser, Prof. Christian Zimmermann, Maroula uses calibrated theoretical models to generate predictions, and then tests those predictions using empirical data.

Next year Maroula will be an Assistant Professor of Economics at Colorado College. Although she will undoubtedly miss the economics department here at UConn, Maroula is very excited about her new position and new department. We wish her the best of luck.

Lei Chen defends, takes positions at UConn

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Lei Chen defended his dissertation in April 2010. His thesis focused on the productivity and efficiency of general dental practices in the U.S. His research lies at the intersection of applied microeconomics, health economics, and operations research. He is going to take a joint position of assistant professor in residence at UConn Health Center and UConn Avery Point. During his study at our department, Lei worked with his major advisor, Prof. Subhash Ray on a variety of projects and published a couple of papers in journals such as the International Journal of Production Economics and the Indian Economic Review.

At the UConn Health Center, Lei will continue doing empirical studies in dental care, especially the effectiveness and efficiency of dental services at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). He will also teach principles of macroeconomics and principles of microeconomics at the UConn Avery Point campus in the next academic year.

Prof. Kimenyi joined by PhD Alum at Brookings

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Prof. Kimenyi is currently a Senior Fellow at the Brookings institution where he is working for the Africa Growth Initiative. He has recently been joined there by Ezra Suruma, a 1976 Economics PhD from UConn who completed his dissertation under the supervision of Morris Singer.

After his PhD, Suruma taught at Florida A&M University, Makerere University (Uganda) and Coppin State University (Maryland), at the latter as department head. He then started an administrative career in Uganda, first at the (central) bank of Uganda, 1987 as the Director of Research, 1990 as Deputy Governor. After various stints in commercial banks, in 2005, he was appointed 2005 as Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development of Uganda. In 2008, he received from The Banker (Financial Times, UK) an award as the best Finance Minister in Africa. Since 2009, he has been a Senior Presidential Advisor for Finance and Planning.

At Brookings, Kimenyi and Suruma are trying trying to influence development policy both in Africa and the United States and OECD. They interact also regularly with policy makers at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and other development institutions and foundations that focus on development. Prof. Kimenyi is in particular pushing for a food security initiatives and overall transformation of African Agriculture. He is also working on natural resource management and industrial policies. Ezra Suruma is writing a book on the growth success story in Uganda over the last decade.

Read more at the East African.

Brian Volz to join Assumption College

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Recent graduate Brian Volz, advised by Prof. Thomas Miceli, has accepted a tenure track assistant professor position at Assumption College in Worcester, MA. Brian will be leaving UConn, where he currently teaches Intermediate Microeconomics and Public Finance, to join the Assumption College faculty for the Fall 2010 semester. Brian’s research focuses on discrimination and productivity in the professional sports industry. His research on discrimination in professional baseball has been published in the Journal of Sports Economics. He also recently presented his research at the Eastern Economic Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia. Brian plans to continue his research on labor and sports economics as a member of the Department of Economics and Global Studies at Assumption College.

Assumption College is a private, Catholic college with 2,150 undergraduate students. Assumption offers a classic liberal arts education where economics is one of 39 undergraduate majors. Brian will be one of seven full time faculty members in the Department of Economics and Global studies. He expects to teach a variety of courses including Microeconomics, Labor Economics, and Public Finance.

Zinnia Mukherjee defends thesis and teaches at Connecticut College

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Zinnia Mukherjee defended her dissertation in December 2009, and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Connecticut College, New London, CT. Her dissertation, titled “Three Essays on Conservation of Endangered Species”, analyzes the effectiveness of policies involving regulatory threats in controlling stochastic externalities. In addition, the dissertation analyzes the welfare effects of unilateral conservation policies in an open economy under alternative market structures and resource management regimes. Zinnia’s advisor is Prof. Segerson.

Currently, Zinnia is working on two new research projects. The first is funded by the UConn Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering through a Multidisciplinary Research Award that Zinnia received in 2009. The project develops a bio-economic discrete choice model to analyze how fishers decide to allocate their fishing effort among various fish species and fishing zones, given that species vary in terms of their sensitivity to marine hypoxia. The impact of marine hypoxia on fish landings is estimated for several Long Island Sound fisheries located in different areas along the coast of Connecticut. The second project looks at the impact of differences in U.S. state laws on the incidence of crime against women (sexual crimes) and the potential migration of repeat offenders across states to target preys more easily and escape harsher penalty sentences.

At UConn, Zinnia has taught a wide variety of undergraduate courses. She had been actively involved with the Association of Graduate Economic Students (AGES) throughout her grad school years and presided over the organization in 2007-2008. She is currently enjoying her work experience at Connecticut College.