Announcements

Mikhael Shor to join department

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Mikhael Shor, currently Assistant Professor of Economics at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, will be joining the department in Fall 2011. He specializes in the study of behavioral game theory and its applications to firm-level decision making. Professor Shor has authored many scholarly articles on auctions, behavioral aspects of marketing, and electronic commerce. His research has appeared in such journals as Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Management Information Systems, Economic Theory, Journal of Economic Psychology, and Contemporary Accounting Research. He has participated in merger analysis and strategic game theory consulting for the Federal Trade Commission and several companies. research interests are in game theory, industrial organization, and experimental economics. His current theoretical research is on the implications of mergers in auction markets, and my experimental research (supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health) is on decision making when faced with an overwhelming number of options.

Professor Shor has taught game theory, industrial organization, pricing strategies, economics of networks, and law and economics. His educational innovations and materials have been featured in Science, Scientific American, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Shor holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MA and PhD from Rutgers University. He is living in Coventry with two kids, Eliana and Jacob, and a soon-to-be-added pound puppy. His wife is an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at UConn.

Prof. Cosgel named department head

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Jeremy Teitelbaum, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), has announced that Prof. Metin Cosgel has been named head of the department of Economics, starting July 1, 2010. He says:

Professor Cosgel has been a member of the CLAS faculty since Fall of 1989. He has written extensively on the political economy of religion and has an ongoing project to study the economic history of the Ottoman Empire. In 2007, he received the Barkan Article Prize for the best article in the field of Ottoman and Turkish Studies awarded by the Turkish Studies Association. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the journal “Economic History of Developing Regions” and is a CLAS representative to the Provost’s International Executive Council.

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

Department seeking to fill position in Economic Rights

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The Department of Economics, in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Human Rights Institute (HRI) – at the University of Connecticut seek to fill a tenure track faculty position in Economic Rights at the Assistant Professor level beginning August 23, 2010. Duties will include teaching, research and service. The successful applicant must demonstrate: (1) the potential for research excellence in Economics and Human Rights, (2) willingness to contribute to the development of economic courses appropriate for the new human rights major, (3) the drive to actively seek external funds to support their scholarly activities and (4) ability to contribute through research, teaching, and/or public engagement to the diversity and excellence of the learning experience Teaching responsibilities on the graduate and undergraduate levels will be in both the Department of Economics and the Human Rights Institute. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to participate in and help shape a range of interdisciplinary programs based at HRI and throughout the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Depending upon appointment, candidates may work at the University of Connecticut’s main campus located in Storrs, and/or the campuses at Avery Point, Hartford, Stamford, Torrington, Waterbury, and West Hartford, as well as the Health Center in Farmington.

Candidates must have completed all requirements for a Ph.D. in Economics by August 23, 2010. Equivalent foreign degrees are acceptable. Salary will be commensurate with background, qualifications, and experience.

Please submit letter of interest, CV, three letters of reference and writing sample by March 1, 2010 to: Economics-HRI Search Committee, Department of Economics, Unit 1063, University of Connecticut, 341 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269-1063 or send material as email attachment (one single pdf document) to: rosanne.fitzgerald@uconn.edu Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. (Search # 2010231)

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

Update on Monteith building replacement

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The building currently housing the Economics and Political Science departments, named for Henry R. Monteith, has been slated for replacement for many years. The building was erected in the 1950’s and was supposed to last twenty years, to accomodate the temporary increase in enrollments due to the GI Bill. Along with its twin, Arjona, it house five departments and 40 classrooms. Both buildings have structural issues, lack of energy efficiency, leaking roofs and an internal design that mixes classrooms and offices and creates a noisy environment.

Arjona and Monteith will be replaced by two buildings. The first, “West,” will be a pure classroom building with 17 classrooms and two large lecture halls of 200 and 400 seats. It will also feature a three story atrium. West will be located on the grounds of the former Pharmacy building, between the Student Union and the CUE building. A groundbreaking ceremony has now been scheduled for December 3, with construction set to complete in March 2011. Construction on the second building, “East,” should start right after this completion on the grounds of the old Co-op, between the Babbidge Library and the Hawley Armory. East will feature 18 classrooms, a 200-seat lecture hall and offices for five academic departments. East should be inaugurated in the Spring of 2013.

Department welcomes visitor Ralf Hepp for academic year

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Ralf Hepp is visiting the department for the 2009-10 academic year from Fordham University, New York, where he is an Assistant Professor of Economics. He has a Ph.D. in International Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. While he will mostly be conducting research during his sabbatical stay, he has accepted to teach an undergraduate course in International Finance.

His research interests lie mainly in open-economy macroeconomics and development economics. Most recently, he has written with co-author Jürgen von Hagen a couple of research papers on the German fiscal system. They have investigated the degree of income and consumption smoothing at the state level for the last four decades as well as risk-sharing properties of the system – a topic at the intersection of macroeconomics and public finance. Prof. Hepp is currently working on a project on financial liberalization and the role of capital controls and foreign exchange reserves in the economic development of emerging market economies.

Prof. Dharmapala to leave department

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After seven years with the department, Prof. Dharmapala is leaving us for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Hired as an assistant professor in 2002 following postdoctoral positions at Harvard and the Australian National University, he was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2008. A specialist in public finance who holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, Dharmapala’s interests also encompass tax policy, corporate finance, and the economic analysis of law.

At UIUC, Dharmapala will join the College of Law, which has a substantial group of scholars in Law and Economics. In addition, he will hold an appointment as Professor of Finance (by courtesy) in the College of Business. His wife, Jennifer Delaney, who holds a PhD from Stanford University’s School of Education, will join the faculty of the College of Education at UIUC. We regret the departure of one of our more outstanding professors, and wish him all the best in his new appointment.

Bill Lott to become interim department head

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Bill Lott will become Interim Head of the Department of Economics as of July 1, 2009. Dennis Heffley (IDEAS), who has served as Department Head for the past four years, recently announced that he would be stepping down from the position on June 30th and returning to full-time teaching and research. Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, subsequently announced that he would be appointing an Interim Head until a full search could take place.

Professor Lott is the Department’s senior member, having just completed his 40th year of service at UConn. Bill completed his PhD at North Carolina State University under the tutelage of prominent econometrician T. Dudley
Wallace, who later joined the Economics faculty at Duke. Lott regularly teaches Econometrics at the graduate level, as well as undergraduate courses in Mathematical Economics, Information Technology for Economists, and
Money & Banking. He and his colleague, Susan Randolph, have recently teamed up to conduct an analysis of the dispersion and growth of income inequality in Connecticut (see pdf). A follow-up paper on this subject is scheduled to appear in the Summer 2009 issue of The Connecticut Economy.