Congratulations to Economics faculty Delia Furtado, who has received promotion to Professor, and Tianxu Chen, promoted to Associate Professor in Residence!
The University of Connecticut Board of Trustees approved the promotions at their Board meeting on Wednesday, April 17th.
“The Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization is devoted to theoretical and empirical research concerning economic decision, organization and behavior and to economic change in all its aspects. Its specific purposes are to foster an improved understanding of how human cognitive, computational and informational characteristics influence the working of economic organizations and market economies and how an economy’s structural features lead to various types of micro and macro behavior, to changing patterns of development and to institutional evolution.”
“Economic Inquiry is a highly regarded scholarly journal in economics publishing articles of general interest across the profession. Quality research that is accessible to a broad range of economists is the primary focus of the journal.”
For both journals, Professor Furtado is handling papers in labor and demographic economics.
The 2023 Fall Economics Graduate Assistant (GA) Training Seminar was held in Herbst (Previously Oak) 312 on November 1, 2023. The GA training seminar was designed to help student instructors and graduate assistants in the Economics Department succeed in their teaching roles at UConn, and to help promote their professional development.
During the event, Professor Talia Bar, Professor Tianxu Chen, Professor Delia Furtado and Professor Derek Johnson shared their teaching experiences, and addressed a variety of issues/questions raised by our student instructors and GAs. Specifically, the topics addressed in the seminar included (1) responsibility of instructors, (2) evaluation of teaching, (3) improving attendance, (4) responding to students’ emails, (5) suggestions for first time teaching, and (6) disputes between instructor and student.
Student instructors teaching in Fall 2023 and other GAs participated in the seminar. They also shared their teaching experiences, and the challenges they face, with the faculty and their peers. The event was a big success, and provided valuable support for our student instructors and GAs. The seminar was coordinated by Professor Chen, who is also the instructor for ECON 6492: Teaching Economics, the newly designed course for first-time student instructors.
In May, Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen presented his paper, “Immigration Enforcement and the Institutionalization of Elderly Americans ,” coauthored with Professor Delia Furtado and Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes from UC-Merced, at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE) in Philadelphia. He will return to Saudi Arabia to work at the Saudi Central Bank in the late summer.
Both were hooded at this year’s Commencement Ceremonies by advisor, Professor Delia Furtado.
Congratulations and good luck, Treena and Abdulmohsen!
On a picture perfect Spring evening, several doctoral students participated in the University’s Commencement exercises. Major advisors hooded their students while friends and family members watched either in person from the Jorgenson or online from thousands of miles away at very inconvenient times given different time zones.
The joyous occasion was at times quite somber given the recent passing of Professor Jorge Agüero. As Professor Agüero’s student, Miranda Mendiola Valdez, crossed the stage, special recognition was given to honor the moment. The entire Jorgensen clapped as Professor Delia Furtado hooded Miranda. Miranda will begin a tenure track position at North Central College in the fall.
Five Sewanee: University of the South professors were asked to share their thoughts on teaching in the Information Age, and our own Tao Song, PhD ’17, was one of them. See his reflections on how the explorer mentality guides his teaching.
While the department is not able to celebrate with an awards banquet this year, we still are able to recognize the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty!
This year’s award recipients are:
Undergraduate Awards
Economics Department General Scholarship
Shuo Han Samuel Jackson Tamara Shelley Grace Smith Khoa Tran Yinuo Xiang Ziyun Zhou
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Nidhi Nair SeSe Nguyen
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Nadine Fernando
Prasad Gosavi
Pin Lyi Choyang Wang
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Adem Aksoy
Allen Cazeau Jeremy Salyer
Benjamin Scudder
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Erin McKeehan
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Shuyi Bian
Charles Triano Scholarship
John Doran Beatrix Jordan
Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship
Erik Choi Ryan Durrel Gregory Elmokian Kevin Gabree Prabhas KC Joshua Waxman Justin Wu
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Annaliesa Wood
Ross Mayer Scholarship
Cole Ensinger Jordan Leonardi
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Ruohan Huang
Ziyun Wu
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Lindsey Buck
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Matthew Brown
Shangyue Jiang
Keuncheol Lee
Kunze Li
Lulin Li
Ghania Shuaib
Sirui Qiu
Zhengxuan Wu
Economics Department General Scholarship
Anastassiya Karaban
Best Third Year Paper Award
Jiaqi Wang
Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
Sirui Qiu
Zhengxuan Wu
Heshan Zhang
CLAS Summer Fellowship
Erdal Asker
Matthew Brown
Jingyun Chen
Jinsoon Cho
Zhenhao Gong
Shangyue Jiang
Keuncheol Lee
Lulin Li
Yizhi Zhu
On Tuesday, April 19th , Professor Furtado will participate in a webinar, “Who will care for aging baby boomers? Immigrants,” organized by the Center on Children and Families at Brookings. She will discuss her research on the relationship between immigrant labor and the quality of care provided in nursing homes. Others will discuss how immigrants make it easier for the elderly to “age-in-place” and for the children of elderly parents to remain in the labor force.
After the presentations, a panel of immigration and health care experts will discuss the country’s caregiving needs and policies that can help address them.
If you are interested in participating, register here. During the live event, viewers can submit questions via email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter using #FutureofCaregiving.
Nursing homes are really struggling. We all witnessed the devastating number of Covid deaths in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. Now, nursing homes are toiling with labor shortages that make it very difficult to provide adequate care for residents. While the immediate impacts of the pandemic will eventually stabilize, in the coming decades, nursing homes will need to cope with increases in the demand for their services as baby boomers age. How will an industry that has struggled to hire and keep enough workers even before the pandemic be able to address the increasing care needs of an aging population?
One potential solution: A more open immigration policy. Professor Delia Furtado’s new research shows that nursing homes in areas receiving more immigrants are able to provide better quality care for residents. She talked about why this might be on The Indicator Podcast. Part of this interview aired on All Things Considered.
In related work, PhD student Treena Goswami finds that older college-educated native-born women remain in the labor force longer when they live in areas with more immigrants. Her analysis suggests that when immigrants are available to provide inexpensive care-giving or housekeeping services, older women (who can afford these services) do not have to prematurely leave the labor force in order to provide full time care for loved ones. Further evidence that policies allowing for more immigration might help the U.S. address the care-giving needs of an aging population.