Professor Kenneth Couch was featured in an Article on UConn Today Homepage. Read more here.
Couch
Professors Couch and Ross Edit Top 30 Journals
Two faculty in the department of economics, Kenneth Couch and Stephen Ross, serve as Associate Editors of journals ranked in the top 30 among the combined pool of economics, public policy and finance outlets according to rankings based on this past year’s Social Science Citation Index. Professor Couch is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) which is the association journal for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). JPAM is considered the top journal in the field of public policy and was ranked 29th this past year. Stephen Ross is Associate Editor of the Journal of Urban Economics. The Journal of Urban Economics is the top journal for its topical area and was ranked 18th this past year among the combined group of journals.
Ken Couch gives talks at NSF, Econometric Society, and Fed Conferences
Ken Couch, an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics has been busy this summer with research presentations. During May, he presented a paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco regarding economic outcomes of divorce. In June, Ken made a presentation at the Econometric Society Summer Meetings in St. Louis, MO of a paper co-authored with a recent UConn Ph.D., Tao Chen. That paper examines the ability of econometricians to recover the results of a social experiment when random data are not available. In June, Ken also made a presentation at a National Science Foundation conference in Fairfax Virginia on the use of interoperable administrative data for administrative and research purposes.
Professor Ross contributes to JPAM Point/Counterpoint on the Foreclosure Crisis
In the spring issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Professor Ross takes issue with the conventional wisdom that the foreclosure crisis has been driven by weak underwriting standards and risky mortgage products in the subprime market. Professor Ross argues that the primary cause of the foreclosure crisis was the significant erosion of housing equity among U.S. homeowners in the period leading up to the crisis, which exposed large numbers of homeowners to significant risk of negative equity from even small to moderate declines in housing prices. For example, he notes that in early 2007 well before the financial crisis stuck foreclosure began to rise in all segments of the mortgage market, not just in the subprime sector. The timing of this increase immediately follows declines in housing prices that began in the fourth quarter of 2006 and those foreclosures were overwhelming among households that had little equity in the home prior to those declines, regardless of their particular lender or mortgage product. In light of this evidence, Professor Ross and his coauthors argue the most important policy response for preventing a future foreclosure crisis is to monitor and develop tools for managing aggregate homeowner leverage in the U.S. housing market. This issue has been notably absent from the debate during and following the passage of the recent financial regulatory reform law. Professor Couch edits the Point/Counterpoint series.
For more information, please see the following website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.v30.2/issuetoc
Professor Couch Renews Research Contract with Social Security Administration
Prof. Kenneth Couch has renewed his annual research contract with the Social Security Administration to conduct joint studies on Unexpected Lifecycle Events. This work focuses on a variety of unexpected lifecycle events on short and long-term economic well being. One line of research considers the impact of recessions on short and long-term economic well being along with preparedness for retirement. Other topics, such as the impact of changes in family structure on economic well-being and preparedness for retirement, are also being examined as part of the research. The contract allows Professor Couch to travel to Washington, DC regularly to work with researchers within the Social Security Administration on these projects.
Prof. Couch to be promoted to Full Professor
Professor Kenneth Couchis a labor economist whose work focuses on disadvantaged groups in the labor market and public policies to assist them. Among other topics, his work has examined disparities in pay and employment for women and minorities, the extent of economic mobility among different groups in society and the influence of the business cycle on the lives of workers. Couch is also known for his research on differences in labor markets in Europe relative to the United States. His work has been published in leading economic journals including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Labor Economics.
Reflecting his reputation as a leading researcher on issues of applied economic policy, Professor Couch is the Editor of the Methods for Policy Evaluation, Point/Counterpoint, and Professional Practice sections of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the journal of the national Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Income Distribution. Couch currently holds a research contract with the Social Security Administration and is a Visiting Scholar at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. In the past he has worked as a visiting professor at Cornell and Yale universities and leading public policy institutes including the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Research on Poverty, and the Urban Institute.
Prof. Couch co-organizes conference at San Francisco Fed
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco announces a call for papers for a conference that will explore how job loss, the onset of health limitations, and changes in household structure affect individual and household well-being over the life course. Proceedings of the conference, as well as discussions from invited discussants, will be published by Stanford University Press as a book edited by Kenneth Couch, University of Connecticut, Mary C. Daly, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Julie Zissimopoulos, RAND.
The goal of the conference and the subsequent book will be to provide a systematic empirical analysis of the incidence of these life course shocks and their impact on economic and non-economic welfare of individuals and households. To facilitate a cohesive discussion and book the Editors have agreed on four areas of analysis that will be commonly addressed for each of the three identified life events: job loss, disability, and changes in family structure.
For more details, see the call for papers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Gulgun Bayaz-Ozturk defends thesis and heads to CUNY
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.
Prof. Couch publishes in American Economic Review
An article based on the work of Prof. Kenneth Couch that examines the experiences of workers who have lost jobs they held for a long time is contained in the current issue of the American Economic Review. The paper, entitled “Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers Revisited“, is co-authored with Dana Placzek who is a research analyst for the Connecticut Department of Labor. The research makes use of state administrative records to show that workers displaced due to large-scale layoffs and plant closures experience sustained earnings losses. Those losses are seen as the proportion of earnings attributable to specific human capital. The analysis also demonstrates that the size of the earnings losses depends heavily on whether workers take Unemployment Insurance benefits during the period of job transition.
The same research project that resulted in this publication in the centennial issue of the American Economic Review (Volume 100, Issue 1) also resulted in an additional publication in Research on Aging regarding specific experiences of older displaced workers in Connecticut that was co-authored with Dana Placzek and Nicholas Jolly, when he was a graduate student in our program. Additional work from this project showing the impact of the business cycle on the depth of earnings losses is still under review.
Professor Couch Associate Editor of Journal of Income Distribution
Professor Kenneth Couch recently joined the Journal of Income Distribution as an Associate Editor. The Journal of Income Distribution has an international readership and is based in Canada. The purpose of the Journal of Income Distribution is to foster scholarly research internationally into all aspects of income distribution. The Journal supports theoretical, empirical, and technical studies pertaining to income distribution research and its methodologies. The editorial board of the journal includes leading scholars in the area of income distribution. Professor Couch also serves as an Editor for the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.