Faculty

Professors Harmon and Tomolonis publish in International Review of Economics Education

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Oskar Harmon and Paul Tomolonis (UConn PhD 2017) co-authored the article “The effects of using Facebook as a discussion forum in an online Principles of Economics course: Results of a randomized controlled trial”

Their paper makes a comparison between using social media or traditional Course Management System (CMS) discussion groups in a fully online Principles of Microeconomics course.

Students were randomly assigned to a discussion forum in either Facebook or CMS to discern a difference in the level of engagement and learning outcomes. The popular hypothesis is that students using social media have greater engagement with the class and higher learning outcomes relative to students using a CMS platform. Reasons for the positive effect include the ease of use and student familiarity with social media, which allows them to make more connections and gain a deeper understanding of the course material through discussions with others.

Contrary to the widely held view, the results of this study suggest that participation in the treatment Facebook group is associated with declining student engagement and a reduction in the semester course average of 3 to 5 points on a 100-point scale.

The article is available at the IREE website

Exploring Career Paths in Business and Economics

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Panel Discussion, Stamford Campus

The annual Alumni Networking Panel, co-organized by Stamford Campus Economics Faculty, CLAS Alumni Relations, and UConn Foundation, was held March 26, 2019.

The panelists, all UConn alumni, shared stories about their UConn education to the contribution to their career paths.  Mr. Bianchi (majored in Economics) shared that he arrived as a UConn freshman majoring in pre-med, and his class in Principles of Macroeconomics with Professor Polly Allen forever changed his career path, and the skills learned in the Econometrics course taught by Professor Subhash Ray sparked a lifelong interest in quantitative analysis.

Mr. Regan (majored in Economics) shared that his choice of major was inspired by Professor Derek Johnson’s Principles of Microeconomics course, and the Socratic teaching style in Professor Paul Tomolonis’s course in International Economics.

Ms. Daley, and Ms. Pierre-Louis (Public Policy and Psychology majors) shared that from their courses in statistics and computer programming they developed skills core to their successful career paths.  Professor Harmon served as panel moderator.

For more information about the panel click here.

Professor Kao Publishes High Dimensional Econometrics and Identification

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High Dimensional Econometrics and Identification, by Professor Chihwa Kao and co-author Long Liu, will be coming out in May.

From the Publisher:

In many applications of econometrics and economics, a large proportion of the questions of interest are identification. An economist may be interested in uncovering the true signal when the data could be very noisy, such as time-series spurious regression and weak instruments problems, to name a few. In this book, High Dimensional Econometrics and Identification, we illustrate the true signal and, hence, identification can be recovered even with noisy data in high-dimensional data, e.g., large panels. High-dimensional data in econometrics is the rule rather than the exception. One of the tools to analyze large, high-dimensional data is the panel data model.

High Dimensional Econometrics and Identification grew out of research work on the identification and high-dimensional econometrics that we have collaborated on over the years, and it aims to provide an up-to-date presentation of the issues of identification and high-dimensional econometrics, as well as insights into the use of these results in empirical studies. This book is designed for high-level graduate courses in econometrics and statistics, as well as used as a reference for researchers.

Contents:

  • Preface
  • Panel Data Model with Stationary and Nonstationary Regressors and Error Terms
  • Panel Time Trend Model with Stationary and Nonstationary Error Terms
  • Estimation of Change Points in Stationary and Nonstationary Regressors and Error Term
  • Weak Instruments in Panel Data Models
  • Incidental Parameters Problem in Panel Data Models
  • Bibliography
  • Index

Readership: Graduate and researchers in the field of econometrics and economics. 

https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11273

High Dimensional Econometrics at the NE Statistics Symposium (NESS)

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The Department of Economics will be sponsoring a session at the 33rd New England Statistics Symposium (NESS) on May 15–17, 2019.

High Dimensional Econometrics

The technological innovations in information processing and the increased storage capability have made possible to collect very large data sets in various fields of economics and finance.

This session puts together 3 papers that present state-of-the-art techniques to deal with high dimensional issues in econometrics.

List of invited speakers:

(1) Fa Wang, Cass Business School, Fa.Wang@city.ac.uk, “Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference for High Dimensional Nonlinear Factor Models with Application to Factor-augmented Regressions”

(2) Yuan Liao, Rutgers Economics, yuan.liao@rutgers.edu, “Inference for Heterogeneous Effects Using Low Rank Estimation”

(3) Min Seong Kim, UConn Economics, min_seong.kim@uconn.edu, “Policy Analysis Using Panel and Multilevel Models with Group Interactive Fixed Effects”

Discussant: Jungbin Hwang, UConn Economics, jungbin.hwang@uconn.edu

Session Chair: Chihwa Kao, UConn Economics, chih-hwa.kao@uconn.edu

Information about the conference may be found online at https://symposium.nestat.org/

PhD Students to Present at New York Camp Econometrics XIV

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Three of our PhD students, Zhonghui Zhang,  Huarui Jing, and Rui Sun, will be presenting their research at the New York Camp Econometrics XIV poster session in April:

“Mahalanobis Metric Based Clustering for Fixed Effects Model,” Chihwa Kao (University of Connecticut), Min-Seong Kim (University of Connecticut), and Zhonghui Zhang (University of Connecticut).

 “The Robustness Study of Sieve Estimation on Asset Pricing Model,” Huarui Jing (University of Connecticut).

 “Bias-Corrected Estimators in the Dynamic Panel Data Model,” Chihwa Kao (University of Connecticut), Long Liu (University of Texas- San Antonio) and Rui Sun (University of Connecticut).

For more information about the conference, see: New York Camp Econometrics XIV

Professors Smirnova and Harmon present at the 45th Annual Eastern Economic Association Conference in NYC

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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.

Professor Ross’s Research Featured in AEA Research Highlights

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Professor Stephen Ross’s paper “Partners in Crime,” examining the effect of neighborhoods and school on criminal partnerships, was featured this past week in the AEA Research Highlights

https://www.aeaweb.org/research/same-school-social-impact-partners-in-crime

The full paper was published last month in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.

Professor Subhash Ray Publishes in European Journal of Operational Research

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Professor Subhash Ray’s paper THE TRANSFORMATION FUNCTION, TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY, AND THE CCR RATIO is forthcoming in a special issue of European Journal of Operational Research commemorating the introduction of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) into the Operations Research/Management Science literature forty years back by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR). European Journal of Operational Research is a highly rated peer reviewed journal with an impact factor of 3.426 and a 5-year impact factor 0f 3.96.

DEA is a nonparametric method of evaluating productive efficiency without assuming any explicit production, cost, or profit function. It is particularly useful for benchmarking the performance of non-commercial organizations like schools, hospitals, police departments, etc.

Professor Ray has been an active researcher in this area for decades and is internationally recognized for his book Data Envelopment Analysis written from the viewpoint of neoclassical production economics. Published in 2004 by Cambridge University Press, it continues to be a major reference/textbook for serious researchers. In 2016 he received the W.W. Cooper Lifetime Contribution Award from the International DEA Society (iDEAs).

Professor Prakash receives “World Bank Economic Review Excellence in Refereeing Award”

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Professor Nishith Prakash has received the “World Bank Economic Review Excellence in Refereeing Award”, recognizing his service to the journal World Bank Economic Review.

About the Journal

The mission of The World Bank Economic Review is to encourage and support research in the field of development economics. We seek to publish and disseminate innovative theoretical and empirical research that identifies, analyzes, measures, and evaluates the macro and micro-economic forces that promote or impede economic development with a view towards providing the knowledge necessary for designing, implementing, and sustaining effective development policies in low and middle income countries. Our intended audience comprises a worldwide readership of economists and other social scientists in government, business, international agencies, universities, and research institutions.

Professor Ross in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

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Professor Ross, with coauthors Billing and Deming, finds strong evidence of very localized neighborhood effects in both the commission of crimes and the creation of criminal partnerships among older teenagers and young adults (within 1/2 KM).

These localized effects appear to facilitated by relationships created within schools, and do not exist between youth who live very close to each other, but were resided on opposite sides of the same school attendance zone.

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2019
(pp. 126-50)