Professor Min Seong Kim presented his work in the econometrics seminar in the Department of Economics at Yale on March 4th. The title of his presentation was “Bootstrap Inference under Cross Sectional Dependence” (joint with Timothy Conley, Silvia Goncalves and Benoit Perron).
Professor Kim is visiting the Economics Department and the Cowles Foundation Econometrics Program at Yale as a visiting associate professor in Spring 2020.
The Early College Experience Economics program (https://ece.uconn.edu/) held its annual workshop this fall for 30 Connecticut high school economics teachers who are teaching UConn’s Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 1201), Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 1202) and/or Essentials of Economics (ECON 1000).
Leading off the workshop was Professor Mike Shor, presenting “Patent Holdup” in which he explained the limits monopoly power conveyed by patents. The complementary relationships among patents and the price determination of purchasing or licensing of patents. He went on to explain the idea of the patent hold up. He also provided the workshop participants with a classroom exercise in which students discover how patents are priced.
There followed a presentation by Professor Natalia Smirnova, “Using Data in the Classroom: FRED database.” Professor Smirnova demonstrated several empirical uses of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED database including both Macro and Micro economic examples.
Professor William Alpert presented a lunch time talk about the “Perils and Pitfalls of Prediction” highlighting the famine predictions of Paul Ehrlich for the 1980 (100’s of millions die) and the failed predictions of The Club of Rome from 1973. Professor Alpert also “predicted” the rise to more than 600 million in the number of horses in the United States if 18th Century trends had continued, assuming no alternative means of transportation.
Professor Steven Lanza then followed up with a presentation entitled “Rediscovering Lost Arts: Economic Index Numbers” in which he stressed the importance of index numbers and the biases in those numbers. He also demonstrated how to calculate them using data that is easy to access and readily available.
Professor Nishith Prakash rendered the concluding presentation concerning a natural experiment concerning the harassment. In India 79% of women living in cities have experienced harassment in public spaces. Professor Prakash and his coauthors set out to determine the effect of street patrolling that targets harassment, on the type and frequency of incidents and women’s proactive responses. They also are trying to determine the impacts of targeting perpetrators of harassment and what drives these changes — visibility, and/or quantity of a focused taskforce?
All of the presentations were well received and the workshop was among the most successful offered by the ECE Economics program.
Kanda Naknoi is a visiting scholar at the Department of Economics at UC Davis.
During the visit she will work on the dynamics of investment in emerging economies after the Global Financial Crisis. She will also attend seminars and will make a presentation. Her visit will end in mid June.
Professors Natalia Smirnova (UConn PhD 2004) and Oskar Harmon organized and participated in the panel “College Fed Challenge: Impact on Students’ Knowledge Acquisition”.
Among the panelists were faculty advisers and team captains from three NY Federal Reserve Region teams, including the captain of the UConn Stamford team, Jonathan Herrick.
For more information about the panel discussion click here.
The Economics Department Early College Experience Program held its annual workshop for teachers on November 1 at the Storrs Campus. The workshop was attended by 25 teachers from high schools across the state who hold the positions of instructor and preceptor of economics responsible for teaching high school students Principles of Microeconomics (Economics 1201), Principles of Macroeconomics (Economics 1202) and Essentials of Economics (Economics 1000) in their high school.
The teachers who attended, learned from a program they inspired by suggesting topics in the spring of 2018. Highlights of this year’s program included Professor Nishith Prakash presenting his work entitled “Gender, Crime and Punishment”, which provided a peek at original economics research. The teachers were excited by this work and raised numerous questions.
Professor Prakash’s paper was followed by a presentation by Professor Natalia Smirnova (a UConn Economics Ph.D.) entitled “Oligarchs and Ivans: A Changing Russian Economy 1990-2020” in which Professor Smirnova provided both background and predictions for the modern Russian Economy including a look forward.
Professor Oskar R. Harmon, who is doing research and teaching about sports economics, presented an exciting session entitled “Sports Economics and Principals of Economics” over lunch. Professor Harmon was followed on the program by Mr. Paul Conant explaining the Kyoto Treaty to the teachers in a session titled “Kyoto and Beyond.”
ECE
Economics Coordinator and Emeritus Professor of Economics Bill Alpert capped off the day with his discussion “Income Distribution: What’s the Matter?”
After continuing discussion the workshop was adjourned.
At the 2018 Sports and Society Conference Oskar Harmon participated in the panel “Activism in the 21th Century”.
He presented his work on the confluence of patriotism, race, and politics in the 2017 NFL season.
The conference was hosted by the College of Mount Saint Vincent, NY on October 26, 2018.
The conference program is available at:
http://issuu.com/cmsvpubs/docs/sport_and_society_conference_2018?e=2331114/65248589
Professor Kanda Naknoi presented her work at the Department of Economics and Finance seminar at the City University of Hong Kong on September 20th. The title of her presentation was “Exchange Rate Pass-Through and Market Structure in Multi-Country World”.
The paper for her presentation can be found at: http://www.cb.cityu.edu.hk/ef/research/seminars/economics/past
At t
he annual meeting of the American Association of University Professors in Washington DC, June 14-15, 2018, Professor Harmon participated in the panel: Taking a Knee, Raising a Fist: Race, Sport, and Politics in Historical Perspective, with Professors Joseph Cooper, Sport Management, and Jeffrey Ogbar, History.
The panel discussed free speech and social protest in sports from the historical, economic and cultural perspective. Professors Ogbar and Cooper looked at the intersection of Sports, Race and Politics traced from the advent of American organized sports in the 1880s to the social protest of Robeson and Ali. Professor Harmon presented results of a study of the effect of anthem protests on NFL gate attendance.
Professor Oskar Harmon has been invited to serve a three-year term on the American Economic Association Committee on Economic Education, ending December 31, 2020.
The Committee organizes the program for the annual Conference on Teaching and Economic Education (CTREE) and the Economic Education session for the annual ASSA meetings that goes into the AER P&P.
The Early College Experience (ECE) Economics Program presented a workshop on October 31 for Connecticut high school teachers offering Principles of Micro and Macro Economics (Econ 1201 and 1202) and Essentials of Economics (Econ 1000) in their high schools. The economics program now has certified 39 instructors as either Adjunct Professors of Economics or Preceptors in Economics. Twenty-nine of them choose to attend the workshop.
The teachers were instructed on the economics of climate change by Wensu Li, one of UCONN’s knowledgeable graduate students who discussed what one could teach in the principles classes about climate change. Professor Paul Tomolonis, Assistant Professor of Economics, Western New England University and Adjunct Professor of Economics University of Connecticut, reflected on earnings management with the workshop participants. 
He used earnings managment as an example of misallocation of resources. Professor Stephen L. Ross, Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut described the importance of distinguishing between permanent shocks and transitory shocks to the macro economy and the day was concluded with Professor Dennis Heffley, Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut, Emeritus who addressed the workshop on the teaching of health economics at the principles level.
Finally, three of the teachers (Ms. Vancil, Shelton, Ms. Pelling, West Hartford, and Mr. Staffaroni from New Canaan) spent a few minutes over lunch to shared one of their learning experiences with their colleagues gained while attending the Joint Council on Economic Education Conference in New York City in early October.
UCONN ECE is a concurrent enrollment program that allows motivated high school students to take UCONN courses at their high schools for both high school and college credit. Every course taken through UCONN ECE is equivalent to the same course at the University of Connecticut. Students benefit by taking college courses in a setting that is both familiar and conducive to learning. High school instructors who have been certified through the University of Connecticut serve as adjunct faculty members and teach UCONN ECE courses. Established in 1955, UCONN ECE is the nation’s longest running concurrent enrollment program and is accredited by The National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships.