Professor Steve Ross’s work (with Eric Brunner and Shaun Dougherty) on the positive effects for students of attending one of Connecticut’s technical high schools was the Featured Working Paper for September 17, 2021 on the National Bureau of Economic Research homepage: https://www.nber.org/
The paper “The Effects of Career and Technical Education: Evidence from the Connecticut Technical High School System” may be found at: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28790
During the Stamford campus Convocation ceremony on September 9, 2021, Professor Smirnova received the 2021 Faculty Recognition Award given to faculty member who goes above and beyond the call of duty to serve the students and the campus. According to the Award criteria, the nominee should have a balanced and thorough record of achievement in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service.
In addition to teaching various Economics courses, Dr. Smirnova was recognized for her work with students as academic adviser, as club advisor to the College Fed Challenge Stamford team, as Career Champion, and the organizer of several community outreach events.
During 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. Smirnova collaborated with Political Science Department, Center for Career Development, Honors Program, and UConn Foundation to bring two well-attended career-focused events to Stamford campus:
Dr. Smirnova also serves as the Economics Department liaison to the Early College Experience Program, which works with high schools across Connecticut. In 2020-2021, the Economics was the largest discipline of the ECE program, working with 68 instructors teaching 52 courses.
The scholarship of Dr. Smirnova encompasses her work on pedagogy, promotion of women in economics, and supporting students with their research aspirations. To this end in 2021, Dr. Smirnova was instrumental in sending her students to the Diverse Economics conference and the National Conference on Women in Economics WE are Resilient.
Her own research on data visualization use in the undergraduate classroom was showcased at the TeachECONference2021 organized jointly by Cornell University and the University College of London.
At the Convocation, Dr. Smirnova shared her passion for teaching and working with students and encouraged students to seek resources that will help them succeed.
Professor Nishith Prakash has been invited to join the editorial board of PLOS ONE
PLOS ONE is an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future. Founded with the aim of accelerating the pace of scientific advancement and demonstrating its value, we believe all rigorous science needs to be published and discoverable, widely disseminated and freely accessible to all.
The research we publish is multidisciplinary and, often, interdisciplinary. PLOS ONE accepts research in over two hundred subject areas across science, engineering, medicine, and the related social sciences and humanities. We evaluate submitted manuscripts on the basis of methodological rigor and high ethical standards, regardless of perceived novelty.
Professor Steven Lanza has launched The Connecticut Green Sheet, a short quarterly newsletter on the state’s economy (see the coverage by CT News Junkie at: https://directory.ctnewsjunkie.com/2021/05/quarterly-newsletter-analyzes-connecticut-economy/).
The Green Sheet “takes a page” from the department’s old Connecticut Economy Quarterly Review (the green is a nod to the Quarterly’s signature dark cyan accent color) and offers readers a current indicator of state economic activity (the General Drift Indicator or GDI) plus a forecast of anticipated nonfarm job changes.
Professor Agüero and Professor Zhao have received CLAS Summer Funding for their research projects, respectively. Professor Agüero’s project will conduct an experimental intervention providing information about college scholarships to disadvantaged high school students in Peru to motivate their study efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. The project has also received the approval of the Ministry of Education.
Professor Zhao received funding for his project titled “Health Inequality over the Life Cycle and Its Implications for Economic Well-Being”. In this project, Professor Zhao and his coauthors examine the relationship between health inequality and lifetime earnings inequality, paying close attention to the role of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) in facilitating the tradeoff between health and economic well-being.
Professor Steve Ross was interviewed on the Connecticut Public Radio program Where We Live about the potential Universal Basic Income pilot program in Hartford, CT.
The interview is online at:
Universal Basic Income Might Be Coming To Hartford | Connecticut Public Radio (wnpr.org)
Professor Jorge Agüero will become an Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household (https://www.springer.com/journal/11150).
REHO “publishes empirical and theoretical research on the economic behavior and decision-making processes of single and multi-person households. The journal emphasizes economic analyses on the effects of policy instruments on household decisions, macroeconomic applications, and research on economic development. Not wedded to particular models nor methods, the journal fosters high quality research using a variety of approaches.”
Professor Agüero will start his editorial tenure in June 2021.
Professor Stephen Ross will be serving on the Universal Basic Income (UBI) working group for the City of Hartford, tasked with guiding a pilot program to evaluate the possible implementation of a UBI by the city.
The pilot program was featured this week in an article in the Hartford Courant:
City of Hartford exploring giving no-strings, monthly cash payments to single, working parents
Professor Stephen Ross has been named a Research Associate in the Education Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
https://www.nber.org/people/stephen_ross
The full announcement from NBER may be found online at:
NBER Appoints 15 Research Associates, 57 Faculty Research Fellows | NBER
Professor Jorge Agüero has published “The value of redistribution: Natural resources and the formation of human capital under weak institutions” in the Journal of Development Economics.
The paper is coauthored with Carlos Felipe Balcázar, Stanislao Maldonado and Hugo Ñopo.
Abstract: We exploit time and spatial variation generated by the commodities boom to measure the effect of natural resources on human capital formation in Peru, a country with low governance indicators. Combining test scores from over two million students and district-level administrative data of mining taxes redistributed to local governments, we find sizable effects on student learning from the redistribution. However, and consistent with recent political economy models, the relationship is non-monotonic. Based on these models, we identify improvements in school expenditure and infrastructure, together with increases in health outcomes of adults and children, as key mechanisms explaining the effect we find for redistribution. Policy implications for the avoidance of the natural resource curse are discussed.
The paper may be found online at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387820301565