Faculty

Professor Prakash a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School

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Professor Nishith Prakash has received an appointment as a fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at Harvard Kennedy School.

About WAPPP

The Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard Kennedy School closes gender gaps in economic opportunity, political participation, health and education by creating knowledge, training leaders, and informing public policy and organizational practices.

Our research provides evidence-based insights on the role of gender in shaping economic, political, and social opportunities available to individuals. We identify successful interventions and measure their impact on women, men, and society, then share recommendations on what policies, organizational practices, and leadership techniques help close involuntary gaps.

We train today’s leaders and prepare future leaders to create a more gender equal world, while providing women with skills and tools to successfully navigate existing systems. We draw on Harvard University’s unparalleled faculty expertise and its global reach to impact the thinking of those who make decisions across sectors.

No other organization in the world builds on behavioral insights to create evidence-based organizational designs that can promote women’s empowerment, overcome gender bias, and provide equal opportunities for women and men, like the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. And no other entity provides assistance to organizations with the goal of consulting, learning and teaching at the same time, benefiting from the talent pool of Harvard faculty, students and fellows.

https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/about-wappp

 

2019 Spring Awards Banquet

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Uconn sealOn April 18, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:

Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:

Kader Akpinar
Gianna DeMasi
Ryan Gilland
Michelle Grieco
Andrew Hendrickson Jr.
Christopher Holden
Andrew Humphrey
Marisa Infante
Yuansun Jiang
Megan Llewellyn
Colin MacDougald
Adam Patterson
William Poundstone
James Rice
Jeffery Sanawong
David Stanco
Brianna Sullivan
Mollie Swanton
Mary Vlamis
Nicholas Wehrle

Undergraduate Awards

Economics Department General Scholarship

Michael Goccia
Mathilda Hill
James Rice
Sharon Spaulding
Qingya Yang

Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship

Tiffany D’Andrea
Zichen Shu
Zian Zhang
Harrison Zraly

Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship

Arianna Dines
Sueing Ngov
Sheng Tian

Louis D. Traurig Scholarship

Fizza Alam
Dea Ballij
Marisa Infante
Ajshe Zulfi

Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize

Harry Godfrey-Fogg

Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship

Michelle Grieco

Charles Triano Scholarship

Gianna DeMasi

Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship

Elizabeth Miller
Alexander Mostaghami
John Peterson
Mary Vlamis

Ross Mayer Scholarship

John Cizeski
Tyler DiBrino


Graduate Awards

Albert E. Waugh Scholarship

Mark McInerney

W. Harrison Carter Award

Lindsey Buck
Huarui Jing

Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship

Wei Zheng

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship

Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Heli Zu
Jinning Wang

Economics Department General Scholarship

Treena Goswami
Shilpa Sethia
Rui Sun
Kevin Wood
Haoxiang Xu

Best Third Year Paper Award

Umesh Ghimire

Roklen Graduate Research Scholarship

Xizi Li

Eleanor Bloom Trust Fund

Eniola Fasola

Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

Xuejian Gong
Miranda Mendiola Valdez
Ziyun Wu
Hao Cui
Anup Tiwari
Ruohan Huang
Yizhi Zhu
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen


Faculty Awards

Grillo Family Research Award

Jackie Zhao

Grillo Family Teaching Award

David Simon

Employee Appreciation Awards

Steven Lanza – 25 years
Richard Langlois – 35 years
Subhash Ray – 35 years

Congratulations to everyone!

 

2019 Spring Awards Banquet

Posted on by

Uconn sealOn April 18, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:

Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:

Kader Akpinar
Gianna DeMasi
Ryan Gilland
Michelle Grieco
Andrew Hendrickson Jr.
Christopher Holden
Andrew Humphrey
Marisa Infante
Yuansun Jiang
Megan Llewellyn
Colin MacDougald
Adam Patterson
William Poundstone
James Rice
Jeffery Sanawong
David Stanco
Brianna Sullivan
Mollie Swanton
Mary Vlamis
Nicholas Wehrle

Undergraduate Awards

Economics Department General Scholarship

Michael Goccia
Mathilda Hill
James Rice
Sharon Spaulding
Qingya Yang

Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship

Tiffany D’Andrea
Zichen Shu
Zian Zhang
Harrison Zraly

Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship

Arianna Dines
Sueing Ngov
Sheng Tian

Louis D. Traurig Scholarship

Fizza Alam
Dea Ballij
Marisa Infante
Ajshe Zulfi

Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize

Harry Godfrey-Fogg

Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship

Michelle Grieco

Charles Triano Scholarship

Gianna DeMasi

Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship

Elizabeth Miller
Alexander Mostaghami
John Peterson
Mary Vlamis

Ross Mayer Scholarship

John Cizeski
Tyler DiBrino


Graduate Awards

Albert E. Waugh Scholarship

Mark McInerney

W. Harrison Carter Award

Lindsey Buck
Huarui Jing

Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship

Wei Zheng

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship

Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Heli Zu
Jinning Wang

Economics Department General Scholarship

Treena Goswami
Shilpa Sethia
Rui Sun
Kevin Wood
Haoxiang Xu

Best Third Year Paper Award

Umesh Ghimire

Roklen Graduate Research Scholarship

Xizi Li

Eleanor Bloom Trust Fund

Eniola Fasola

Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

Xuejian Gong
Miranda Mendiola Valdez
Ziyun Wu
Hao Cui
Anup Tiwari
Ruohan Huang
Yizhi Zhu
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen


Faculty Awards

Grillo Family Research Award

Jackie Zhao

Grillo Family Teaching Award

David Simon

Employee Appreciation Awards

Steven Lanza – 25 years
Richard Langlois – 35 years
Subhash Ray – 35 years

Congratulations to everyone!

 

Professor Zhao’s Research to be Published in International Economic Review

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Professor Zhao’s paper “Household Saving, Financial Constraints, and the Current Account in China” has been accepted for publication in the International Economic Review.

In this paper, Professor Zhao and his coauthor find that the rise and fall in China’s current account surplus was largely due to (1) the rising household saving driven by the decline in family insurance coupled with inadequate public insurance, and (2) the variation in financial constraints facing the Chinese firms.

The working paper version of this research can be found in the UConn working paper series: https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2018-15.html.

International Economic Review publishes cutting edge papers in many areas of economics, including econometrics, economic theory, macro, and applied economics. It is considered one of the leading journals in economics in the world (Engemann and Wall, 2009).

Economics Faculty Baggio, Lanza, and Zhao Receive Promotions

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Congratulations to Economics faculty members Michele Baggio and Kai (Jackie) Zhao, who have received promotion to tenured Associate Professor, and to Steven Lanza, promoted to Associate Professor in Residence!

The UConn Board of Trustees approved the promotions, effective August 23rd, at the Board meeting on Wednesday, April 24th.

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/