Zinnia Mukherjee, an ’09 PhD graduate of the Department of Economics, received the Professor of the Year award at the Simmons College Senior Faculty Banquet in April.
This award, voted upon each year by the entire graduating class of Simmons College, recognizes outstanding work “in teaching, advising, and providing support and guidance to students.”
William Alpert, Associate Professor Emeritus, was recently awarded the Thomas E. Recchio Faculty Coordinator Award for Academic Leadership in the University’s Early College Experience program (ECE).
The Early College Experience, one of the first concurrent enrollment programs in the world, is committed to providing access to and preparation for post-secondary education programs through its ability to offer University of Connecticut courses to high school students in their high schools. ECE is committed to excellence in education by fostering a relationship between higher education and partner high schools to create an effective transition for students who have made college a goal.
Professor Alpert began his association with the ECE program in Economics in 2002 with two instructors participating at two Connecticut high schools. By April 2018 Economics fielded 30 economics (Principles Microeconomics, Principles Macroeconomics and Essentials of Economics) with classes in more than 30 schools with well over 30 teachers certified as ECE instructors or preceptors in Economics.
In presenting the award, Professor Recchio (English) noted Professor Alpert’s distinguished publication record, saying it represented the Early College Experience Program’s dedication to serious scholarship.
On March 29, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:
Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Ryan Christopher Dodd
Liam Dorris
Matthew Gorman
Rebecca Hill
Shannon Lozier
Madeline Memoli
Alexander Rojas
Ryan Verano
Mingrui Zhou
Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
John Cizeski
Tyler DiBrino
Rebecca Hill
Zachary Lobman
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Steven Hashemi
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Matthew Edson
Harry Godfrey-Fogg
Colin Mortimer
Magda Soto-Enciso
Ross Mayer Scholarship
Matthew DeLeon
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Alexander Rojas
Economics Department General Scholarship
Michelle Grieco
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Adam Vancisin
Mary F. Vlamis
Zihan Wang
Charles Triano Scholarship
Jenifer Repaci
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Timothy Brown
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Michael DiNardi
Patralekha Ukil
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Kevin Wood
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Huarui Jing
Chuang Li
Wensu Li
Shilpa Sethia
Rui Sun
Jinning Wang
On April 13, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:
Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Matthew Braccio
Zachary Console
Matthew DeLeon
Jennafer Fugal
Benjamin Hamel
Henry Hooper
Daniel Rodrigues
Claudia Rodriguez
Nandhana Sajeev
Akwasi Sarpong
Michael Scalise
Austin Song
Connor Todd
Alexandra Torchigana
Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Patrick Adams
Andrew Carroll
Joshua Essick
Kayla Joyce
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Matthew DeLeon
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
William Johnston
Claudia Rodriguez
Alexander Rojas
Zihan Wang
Ross Mayer Scholarship
Tasneem Ahmed
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Yiting Jiang
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Tianyi Li
Roy Masha
Di Wu
Charles Triano Scholarship
Jennafer Fugal
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Tian Lou
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Andrew Ju
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Mark McInerney
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Aaron Cooke
Michael DiNardi
Jingwei Huang
Samantha Minieri
Tao Song
Kevin Wood
Wei Zheng
Congratulations to Economics students Rebecca Hill and Lucas Silva Lopes, who are among the twenty-three University of Connecticut undergraduates who have been selected as the 2017 University Scholars:
Rebecca Hill Major: English/Economics Project Title: The Western Madwoman: A Feminist History and Economic Study in Novel Form Committee: Ellen Litman, English (chair), Veronica Makowsky, English & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Delia Furtado, Economics
Lucas Silva Lopes Major: Political Science/Economics Project Title: Presidential Interruptions and Interim Presidents: How Do Latin American Countries Re-Equilibrate Both Politically and Macroeconomically After a Presidential Interruption? Committee: Matthew Singer, Political Science (chair), Veronica Herrera, Political Science, Derek Johnson, Economics
“The University Scholar Program is one of the most prestigious programs for undergraduates at the University of Connecticut. Available to students from all of the University’s schools and colleges, the University Scholar Program allows students to design and pursue an in-depth research or creative project and to craft an individualized plan of study that supports their intellectual interests during their final three semesters. Each student is mentored by an advisory committee of three faculty.
No more than 30 University Scholars are selected each year. Admission is based on an application submitted during the first semester of a student’s junior year. Applications are reviewed by an interdisciplinary faculty committee that looks for innovative projects and academically rigorous course selection. Graduation as a University Scholar recognizes a student’s exceptional engagement in research and/or creative endeavors.”
The International Data Envelopment Society (iDEAs) selected Professor Subhash Ray as this year’s winner of the William W. Cooper Lifetime Contribution Award in the field of Data Envelopment Analysis at the DEA2016 Conference recently held in Wuhan, China.
Professor William Cooper and his lifelong collaborator Abraham Charnes, along with their graduate student Eduardo Rhodes, developed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in 1978 as a nonparametric method of measuring efficiency that is especially useful for evaluating performance of non-profit organizations and government departments through benchmarking.
In 1979, while still a PhD student, Professor Ray started working on DEA and applied the newly developed method in a UNDP project to measure efficiency of primary health care centers in Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Over the past decades Professor Ray’s methodological and empirical contributions to the DEA literature have been published in leading Economics and Operations Research/Management Science journals including American Economic Review and Management Science.
His book Data Envelopment Analysis: Theory and Techniques for Economics and Operations Research published by Cambridge University Press in 2004 still continues to be a popular reference book for researchers in the field. He is a Senior Editor of The DEA Journal.
On April 14, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:
Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Odrine Belot
Isaac Blyakher
Justin Chan
Sadie Colcord
Cathleen Cormier
Raychel Decker
Geoffrey Donovan
Kelsey Duran
Peter Jiang
Kayla Joyce
Steven Joyce
Patrick Meucci
Kimberley Pepper
Kristina Petruff
Corrin Powell
Fariha Rashid
Matthew Regan
John Shea
Ryan Sherman
Chifan Shi
Josh Spadaro
Leo Villari
Makayla Wall
Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Patrick Adams
Brendan Costello
Kayla Joyce
Kimberly Roland
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Katherine Harrington
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Chris Cunningham
William Johnston
Blazej Pulawski
Claudia Rodriguez
Ross Mayer Scholarship
Kimberley Pepper
Economics Department General Scholarship
Caitlin Delaney
Matthew DeLeon
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Tasneem Ahmed
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Andrew Carroll
Fariha Rashid
Joseph Roessler
Charles Triano Scholarship
Di Wu
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Ehi Osagie
Hao Ying
Economics Research Award Program
Professor Jorge Aguero & Juan Campanario
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Tao Song
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Aaron Cooke
Mike Dinardi
Economics Department Graduate Scholarship
Samantha Minieri
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Professor Jorge Agüero (faculty) and Juan Campanario (student) are the recipients of the 2016 Undergraduate Economics Research Award Program (ERAP).
Their work on their project “Can Growth and Redistribution Reduce the Influence of Colonial Institutions? The Case of Peru’s Mining Mita” will be supported through the ERAP program, which is designed to assist research apprenticeships and research collaborations between undergraduate economics majors and economics faculty members.
The ERAP program enables the student to enhance research skills relevant to the field of economics, while the faculty member guides the project and provides mentorship. Only one award is given each academic year, with the student receiving a $1,500 fellowship and the faculty mentor receiving a $1,000 grant added to their departmental research accounts.
Graduate students Andrew Ju and Sungoh Kwon have received the Department of Economics’ ‘Best Third-Year Paper’ awards for 2015-2016.
From the abstract of Andrew’s paper State Collective Bargaining Laws and Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials:
In recent years states across the country have considered restricting or eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees, thus sparking a national debate over the compensation of public sector workers. In this paper I contribute evidence to this debate by examining the effects of state collective bargaining laws on public-private sector wage differentials. Using data from the 2000 to 2014 CPS Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (MORG) and a variety of identification strategies, I find that in states without mandatory collective bargaining laws state and local government workers earn approximately 7 percent less than their private sector counterparts. In contrast, in states with mandatory collective bargaining laws, state and local government workers earn approximately the same as their private sector counterparts.
I also find that state collective bargaining laws play an important role in determining the level of fringe benefits: local government employees in mandatory collective bargaining states have significantly higher probabilities of obtaining an employer-sponsored health insurance or pension plan.
From the abstract of Sungoh’s paper Does Public School Spending Raise Intergenerational Mobility?: Evidence from U.S. School Finance Reforms:
This study provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on the relationship between public school spending and intergenerational mobility (IGM). Using a plausibly exogenous variation in school spending induced by U.S. court-mandated school finance reforms and county-by-cohort level measures of IGM, I found no evidence that the increase in public school spending raises future income rank of disadvantaged children in the national distribution, while there is evidence of a slight increase in the rank of advantaged children. When it comes to college attendance, I found that children similarly benefit from additional school spending regardless of family backgrounds. I discuss some possible explanations on the results.
Professor Paul Hallwood last week was awarded the Outstanding Researcher award by the Avery Point Director, Professor Marty Wood. The prize is awarded annually to faculty including the science departments.
The citations mentioned that Professor Hallwood is the author of 10 books and about 70 papers in refereed journals, and that he is active in applied work – notably in redesigning a tax system for the Scottish government and earlier as an economic advisor to the Government of Saudi Arabia.