Announcements

Ling Huang to join department

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Ling Huang, Economics PhD from Duke University and currently post-doc at the Fisheries Economics Research Unit of the University of British Columbia, will be joining the department as Assistant Professor next Fall. Her research interests center on investigating the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic outputs. Specifically, she is interested in evaluating the effectiveness of policies and impacts of resource exploitation, and discovering the underlying mechanisms.

Huang has conducted research on a wide range of topics in resource economics, including property rights and overexploitation of renewable resources, economic impact analysis of environmental stresses, impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, non-market evaluation, economic impact analysis of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, ‘green’ economy strategies and ecosystem-based management. She has published in Ecological Economics and Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science

This year’s AGES distinguished speaker: Carmen Reinhart

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The Association of Graduate Economics Students (AGES) invites every year a prominent speaker to give a public lecture on campus. Over the past years, speakers included Greg Mankiw, Ariel Rubinstein and Karl Case as well as Nobel Laureates Finn Kydland and Robert Lucas. This year’s speaker will be Carmen Reinhart.

Prof. Reinhart is a specialist of financial crises and has extensively studied the many collapses in economic history. Her studies have recently culminated in a book with Kenneth Rogoff, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton Press), which will be at the center of her talk February 24, 2011, at 11:00 AM in the Konover Auditorium, Dodd Research Center. The talk is open to the public.

Prof. Reinhart has a PhD from Columbia University and recently moved from the University of Maryland to the Peterson Institute of International Economics. She has been deputy research director at the International Monetary Fund and chief economist at Bear Stearns. She is currently the top ranked female economist.

More details at AGES.

Nishith Prakash to join department

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Nishith Prakash will be joining the University of Connecticut in January 2012 as assistant professor on a joint position with the Department of Economics and the Human Rights Institute. He received his PhD in Economics from University of Houston, TX and his Master’s from Delhi School of Economics at University of Delhi, India. He is currently a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University. His primary research interests are Development Economics, Labor Economics and Public Policy. In Development Economics, his current research focuses on understanding the effects of employment and political reservation policies in India on labor market outcomes, child labor and poverty. In Labor Economics, his research interests lie in analyzing returns to English-language skills, labor market discrimination, and occupational choices among minorities in India. He is also a research fellow both at IZA and CReAM.

Richard Suen to join faculty in Fall

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Richard M. H. Suen has recently accepted to join next Fall the department as Assistant Professor. A native of Hong Kong, he obtained his undergraduate degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and then his PhD at the University of Rochester. He is currently at the University of California, Riverside.

Prof. Suen is a macroeconomist with both theoretical and applied interests. He has published on suburbanization in the International Economics Review, on process approximation in the Review of Economic Dynamics and growth theory in the Journal of Macroeconomics. His current research pertains to understanding the consequences of time preference as well as the link between technological progress and health care spending.

Chinese PhD student visits department for the term

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Xiaofang Dong, from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China, is visiting the Department for joint research with Professor Stephen Ross in the area of urban economics. During her visit, she will be working on developing theoretical models of agglomeration economies.

She has a bachelors degree in Mathematics and masters degree in Finance and is currently in the fourth year of her PH.D program. Her research focuses on both urban and labor economics, including housing policy, unemployment, public-private wage differences, entrepreneurship and agglomeration economies in China. She has published her research in the China Economic Review.

Korean professor visits department for the term

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Dr. Sangmok Kang of Pusan National University in South Korea is currently visiting the Department for collaborative research with Professor Subhash Ray in the area of productivity and efficiency analysis. Dr. Kang is a a Professor of Economics back in his university in Korea and served as the Director of the Institute of Management and Economics there. In the past he has been a visiting scholar at Oregon State University, Purdue University, and University of Chicago. His principal areas of research are energy, the environment, and international trade policies. His applied research is focused on Korea and China. He has published a number of papers in well known journals including Journal of Productivity Analysis, Energy Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics, Ecological Economics, and Environment and Development Economics.

Department of Economics and Human Rights Institute seek to fill joint position

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The Department of Economics and the Human Rights Institute (HRI) at the University of Connecticut seek to fill a tenure track faculty position in Economics and Human Rights at the Assistant or Associate Professor level beginning August, 2011. Candidates must demonstrate the potential for research excellence in Economics and Human Rights and willingness to contribute to the development of economics courses appropriate for the new human rights major. Teaching responsibilities on the graduate and undergraduate levels will be in both the Department of Economics and the Human Rights Institute.

Minimum qualifications include the completion of all requirements for a Ph.D. in Economics by August 22, 2011; demonstrated excellence in research in economics and human rights; the ability to develop appropriate courses for human rights curriculum; and a teaching background. Equivalent foreign degrees are acceptable. Preferred qualifications include the ability to contribute through research, teaching, and/or public engagement to the diversity and excellence of the learning experience.

This is a full time, 9 month, tenure track position. Salary and benefits are competitive. Rank and salary will be commensurate with background, qualifications, and experience.

To apply, please submit a letter of interest that describes how your work relates to human rights, a CV, three letters of reference, and a writing sample by December 1, 2010 to http://www.econjobmarket.org/. Screening will begin immediately, with interviews planned for the ASSA meetings in Denver.

The University of Connecticut is an EEO/AA employer. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, including minorities, women, and people with disabilities.

Department is seeking to fill three faculty openings

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The Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut seeks to fill three tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant Professor level beginning August, 2011 in the following subfields: Econometrics (Search# 2011149), Renewable Resources and Conservation/Environmental Economics (Search# 2011150), and Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics (Search# 2011151). Responsibilities include developing and/or maintaining a strong research program in the appropriate subfields and teaching/advising graduate and undergraduate students

Minimum qualifications include the completion of all requirements for a Ph.D. in Economics by August 22, 2011; demonstrated excellence in scholarly research in appropriate subfields; and teaching experience. Equivalent foreign degrees are acceptable. Preferred qualifications include the ability to contribute through research, teaching, and/or public engagement to the diversity and excellence of the learning experience.

These are full time, 9 month, tenure-track positions. Salary and benefits are competitive. Salary will be commensurate with background, qualifications, and experience.

To apply, please submit CV, sample of research (including thesis abstract for ABDs), and three letters of recommendation by December 1, 2010 online at http://www.econjobmarket.org/. Screening will begin immediately, with interviews planned for the ASSA meetings in Denver.

The University of Connecticut is an EEO/AA employer. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, including minorities, women, and people with disabilities.

Suleyman Kal joins department as Assistant Professor in Residence

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S. Hilmi Kal from the Graduate Center of City University of New York (CUNY) has joined the department this Fall as Assistant Professor in Residence. His expertise is in financial economics, non-linear econometrics and macroeconomics. His research focuses on the implementation of non-linear econometric modeling to financial and foreign exchange markets.

At UConn, he is teaching intermediate macroeconomics as well as upper level undergraduate field courses such as international finance and labor economics.

Alumnus creates scholarship for Economics undergraduates

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Most students begin their careers in earnest when they graduate from college. But Ross Mayer (BA Economics 1970) started his career in college, selling life insurance policies to students, Storrs residents and others in Connecticut and New York. He was so good at it that Connecticut General Life Insurance Company hired him right out of UConn, eventually making him a branch manager in Boston. Ten years later, he set out on his own.

His commitment to learning the business – and to connecting with his clients – defined his career. A full-service financial planner who is an associate of Commonwealth Financial Group, a MassMutual agency in Boston, he recently established a President’s Challenge Award for a UConn economics student in need.

Mayer had made a planned gift to UConn earlier, after he received a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. But with the help of a UConn Foundation development officer, who, Mayer says, “really had the kids at UConn at heart,” he created the scholarship to have an impact now, during his lifetime.

For a complete story, see Our Moment, the UConn Foundation’s e-newsletter.