Prof. Ahking’s paper “Measuring U.S. business cycles: A comparison of two methods and two indicators of economic activities” has been published by the Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 199-216, 2015.
The paper compares the performance of two economic time series in capturing the U.S. business cycle turning points using two statistical methods.
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.
Prof. Langlois is named a recipient of the 2015 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Excellence in Research award. Congratulations!
Prof. Naknoi and co-author YiLi Chien (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) have their paper “The Risk Premium and Long-Run Global Imbalances” accepted for publication in the Journal of Monetary Economics. The paper examines the sustainability of U.S. trade deficits, given the assumption that U.S. investors take on more aggregate risk than foreign investors. It predicts that half of US trade deficits is sustainable. A copy of the working paper is available for download from RePEc.
Kathleen Segerson, Philip E. Austin Professor of Economics, has been awarded the 2013 University of Connecticut Distinguished Professor Award.
The UConn Alumni Association established the Distinguished Professor award in 1976 for “an excellent teacher as well as an individual of international reputation whose scholarship reflects substantial credit to the University of Connecticut – a renaissance person.”
Kathleen Segerson, an environmental economist, earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Dartmouth and her doctorate in agricultural and resource economics from Cornell. She studies the incentive effects of alternative environmental policy instruments, including applications in groundwater contamination, hazardous waste management, land use regulation, and climate change. She’s also taken part in projects related to ecosystem services and to marine species protection.
Fellowships include the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, of which she has served as president and vice president, and the American Agricultural Economics Association. Kathleen is a member of the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Academy of Sciences and a handling editor for the journal Conservation Biology.
She was co-editor and associate editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and an associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Past service also includes the Chartered Board of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board and several advisory committees for the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Segerson will be honored at the Alumni Association Awards Celebration on Friday, October 11, 2013 at the UConn Storrs Campus, and the following day at the UConn Homecoming Game at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut.
The London School of Economics has cited Professor Prakash’s paper on education and incentives in Bihar in their blog. The paper, titled “Education Policies and Practices: What Have We Learnt and the Road Ahead for Bihar,” has also been covered by Ideas for India, which Professor Prakash was invited to join earlier this year.
Professor Prakash has also published a non-technical summary of his paper “The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India” in VOX. VOX is a policy portal that aims to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars.
Professor Nishith Prakash has been invited to Growth Week 2012, a three day conference held by the International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics. Professor Prakash spent time at the IGC this summer as an academic visitor. The conference will be held from September 24-26.
Professor Nishith Prakash was recently invited to join a newly formed online economics and policy portal for India, funded by the International Growth Centre (IGC). The portal will potentially become the go-to source for ideas and evidence on policy issues in India. The portal’s goal is to be an ideologically neutral portal for researchers to discuss policies and ideas with a wide audience, and to encourage debate and analysis based on rigorous evidence.
Professor Prakash’s expertise and research in the Indian economy made him a sought after addition to the group. His “Cycling to School” project, which focuses on school attendance in rural India, is also funded by the IGC.
Professor Susan Randolph and a small group of scholars worked together to create a new SERF index to measure human rights, which has recently generated media coverage. For more information, please see: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2011/0606/A-new-way-to-measure-human-rights-may-revolutionize-global-advocacy . The new index is expected to be used internationally as a barometer for measuring social and economic rights within a country.
On Thursday, April 28, the Undergraduate Academic Affairs committee of the UConn Undergraduate Student Government hosted its annual banquet to recognize Professional Excellence in Education among staff, advisers, and faculty at the University. The Committee received 26 nominations for the three categories of awards; based on these nominations, the Committee selected Professor of Economics Fred Carsensen as the Academic Educator of the Year. The student nomination cited his innovative and
challenging class on Contemporary Economic Issues: Globalization, and in particular his use of a “real time” textbook, the Financial Times. Students appreciate his discusion of current events, peppering in anecdotes and personal advice along the way. He also offers his students a rare level of academic freedom. This style encourages creativity and imagination, and his
students are always grateful, even if at first intimidated as they are whet they describe as “the audience to an improv
performance.”
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.