Faculty

Professor Prakash Joins the PLOS ONE Editorial Board

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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. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/journal-information

Professor Lanza Launches Economic Newsletter

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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 receive CLAS Summer Funding

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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 Agüero becomes an Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household

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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 Ross to serve on Hartford’s Universal Basic Income Task Force

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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 Agüero Publishes in the Journal of Development Economics

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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

MSQE Alumni Panel on April 29, 2021

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MSQE Program alumni Claudia Rodriguez (MSQE December 2019) and Jonathan Gonzalez (MSQE December 2019) participated in a virtual MSQE Alumni Networking Panel on April 29th.

Claudia currently works at Moody’s Investor Service, as a Structured Finance Associate Analyst, where she works on the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities team, and the Collateralized Loan Obligations team.

Jonathan currently works for a Connecticut Non-Profit advocacy group.  He is currently providing data analytics research support for advocacy of Connecticut Senate Bill 842 An Act Concerning Health Insurance and Health Care in Connecticut.

They spoke highly of their MSQE training in Python, and R, the value of networking and recommended applying for summer internships.  In conversation about deadlines, it was mentioned that in industry meeting deadlines is crucial, not like class deadlines where professors’ give extensions.

The panel was moderated by Professor Harmon.

Professor Prakash and Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics in UConn Today

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Professor Nishith Prakash and his work with the Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics has been featured in the most recent UConn Today:

New Association Co-Founded By UConn Professor Looks to Diversify Economics

The field of economics, like many areas of academics and society, has struggled over time to bring a diverse range of people into the discipline.

To address some of these issues, a UConn professor has helped create a new organization with the goal of lessening gender, race, and socioeconomic-based gaps in economics through mentorship, resource provision, and the creation of a network focused on inclusion.

AMIE, the Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics, was recently founded by Nishith Prakash, an associate professor of economics at UConn with a joint appointment in the school’s Human Rights Institute. The co-founder is Priya Mukherjee, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin.

The pair started informally working on this idea while they were both visiting scholars at Boston University’s Institute for Economic Development three years ago, and decided to formally launch AMIE this year.

Specific groups that are a focus of AMIE include underrepresented minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, first-generation college students, women, and international students – both those studying in the United States and abroad.

The full article is online at:

New Association Co-Founded By UConn Professor Looks to Diversify Economics