Professors Oskar Harmon and Steven Lanza presented a paper “Factors Contributing to Differences in State Economic Outcomes over the Great Recession” at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association in Washington DC, Feb 26, 2016.
The paper employs a Cox Proportional Hazard model to analyze duration of state recession and recovery spells during the Great Recession.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Early College Experience (ECE) program at the University of Connecticut.
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. High school instructors who have been certified through the University of Connecticut serve as adjunct faculty members and teach UConn ECE courses.
Since about 29% of UConn ECE students continue on to the University of Connecticut, the Research & Development team is able to track their progress. UConn ECE students are more likely to graduate on time and to hold higher first and second semester GPA’s than those students who did not participate in the program.
The Department of Economics has participated in the ECE program since the early 1990s with a small number of instructors (two in 2006). Today that number has grown to 35 certified Economics instructors offering all of the principals classes to students in 25 high schools across the state. The Economics ECE coordinator is Professor William Alpert.
Professor Richard Langlois was recently asked by a staffer of the UK House of Lords to contribute written testimony on an inquiry into “online platforms and the EU Digital Single Market.”
They wanted to hear about the concept of dynamic competition, and provided a set of questions to answer.
The testimony has now been published on Parliament’s website.
Professor Naknoi presented her paper titled “Exchange Rate Pass-Through and Market Structure in a Multi-Country World” in the ASSA Meeting/Econometric Society Meeting in San Francisco on January 4, 2016.
Her model proposes a theory that exporters take into account competing exporters’ currency appreciation in their price setting. In addition, her study provides evidence supporting her theory using data on prices of Canada’s exports to the U.S.
Information about her session is online at:
https://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2016conference/program/preliminary.php
Professor Ross gave the opening address at the Dallas Federal Reserve conference on “Intent vs. Impact: Evaluating Individual- and Community-Based Programs” on November 16th and 17th.
He summarized much of his research on race, neighborhood, and mortgage lending over the last few years. Professor Ross argued that systematic unexplained racial differences in high-cost lending and foreclosure exist and that those differences are associated with the concentration of minority borrowers and loans from low-income and minority neighborhoods at high-cost/high-risk lenders. However, Professor Ross also argued that lending to vulnerable, low-income, and minority borrowers had little to do with the severity of the foreclosure crisis itself given that the majority of foreclosure differences were explained by risk factors rather than income or neighborhood, and the dollar volume of foreclosures nationally was primarily driven by middle and upper-income borrowers living in suburban neighborhoods and a substantial amount of the research discussed is contained in Bayer, Ferreira and Ross (NBER Working Papers #19020 and #20762).
Professors Harmon and Alpert presented two papers at the Southern Economic Association meetings in November.
Harmon presented their paper with Robert Szarka, “Using Google Apps in Economics Courses” and Alpert presented their paper “Who Takes Online Courses at Public Universities?”
Harmon and Alpert also organized two sessions and discussed papers at two sessions. As a capstone Harmon organized and Professor Harmon chaired a panel discussion entitled Labor Market Transitions in the Great Recession featuring Professor Kenneth Couch and including Dr. Robert K Triest, of the Federal Reserve of Boston.
Last Thursday, eighty Hartford-area residents met at NIXS in Hartford for cocktails and a discussion of climate change, part of UConn’s ongoing Science Salon series.
Professor Shor discussed his latest research about how people process (and ignore) scientific evidence in favor of preconceived notions. One audience member (failing to appreciate the irony) told the entire panel of scientists that he does not believe a word of what they are saying but their “so called facts” conflict with his prior view.
Background:
For the first Science Salon (including Dick Langlois): http://econ.uconn.edu/2015/06/08/professor-langlois-at-uconns-first-science-salon/
Kenneth Couch from UConn visited the Pardee Graduate School at RAND in Santa Monica, California in September where he made a research presentation.
While in Los Angeles, he also visited with one of his research collaborators, Julie Zissimopoulos, and a Co-Editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Elizabeth Graddy, at USC. Professor Graddy serves as Vice Provost of Academic and Faculty Affairs for USC.
Professor Nishith Prakash presented his paper titled, “Do Criminally Accused Politicians Affect Economic Outcomes? Evidence from India” at various places including Dartmouth College, Yale University and Wellesley College during the past spring semester.
Professor Kenneth Couch is participating in a Strategic Planning Committee of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM).
APPAM is a scholarly association representing roughly 90 member institutions and 2000 individual members. The committee is charged with developing a five-year strategic plan for APPAM and is chaired by a Harvard Professor and the Chief Economist of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Other members of the committee include representatives of Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Howard University, Mathematica, MDRC, Pepperdine and the University of Minnesota.