An article by Professor Stephen Ross, co-authored with Stephen Billings and David Deming, has been posted on the Centre for Economic Policy Research’s policy portal, Vox:
In the article, Professor Ross and his co-authors discuss recent research on the mechanisms behind the neighborhood concentration of crime. They focus on their recent NBER and HCEO working paper, in which they show that social relationships at school play a very important role in mediating neighborhood effects in youth crime.
The International Data Envelopment Society (iDEAs) selected Professor Subhash Ray as this year’s winner of the William W. Cooper Lifetime Contribution Award in the field of Data Envelopment Analysis at the DEA2016 Conference recently held in Wuhan, China.
Professor William Cooper and his lifelong collaborator Abraham Charnes, along with their graduate student Eduardo Rhodes, developed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in 1978 as a nonparametric method of measuring efficiency that is especially useful for evaluating performance of non-profit organizations and government departments through benchmarking.
In 1979, while still a PhD student, Professor Ray started working on DEA and applied the newly developed method in a UNDP project to measure efficiency of primary health care centers in Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Over the past decades Professor Ray’s methodological and empirical contributions to the DEA literature have been published in leading Economics and Operations Research/Management Science journals including American Economic Review and Management Science.
His book Data Envelopment Analysis: Theory and Techniques for Economics and Operations Research published by Cambridge University Press in 2004 still continues to be a popular reference book for researchers in the field. He is a Senior Editor of The DEA Journal.
Professor Michele Baggio’s paper “Optimal management with reversible regime shifts” with Paul Fackler has been published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
The paper examines the management of a natural resource, a fishery, subject to regime shifting dynamics.
Professor Zhao presented his research on the impact of health insurance policies on aggregate labor supply as part of the 2016 Seminar Series at the St. Louis Fed, on May 4, 2016.
In his research, he investigates whether or not the different health insurance policies in the United States and Europe can explain the fact that Americans work more hours than Europeans.
For more information, see the St. Louis Fed website.
The work of University of Connecticut Professors William Alpert, Kenneth Couch, and Oskar Harmon, entitled “A Randomized Assessment of Online Learning”, appears in the May issue of the American Economic Review. The paper was selected for inclusion in the Papers and Proceedings issue after being submitted in response to a national call for papers on economic education.
The study provides the fourth randomized examination of online versus face-to-face education ever conducted for a semester length college course. In this case, the course studied was microeconomic principles. The study shows that students in a face-to-face course did about half a letter grade better than students in a purely online course developed consistent with best practices for online education. The study finds that there are no meaningful differences in performance when comparing students in a course with a blended versus face-to-face format.
Prof. Harmon was a panelist at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The panel addressed voter disenfranchisement including current/past court challenges to the Voting Rights Act, and stricter voting requirements, following passage of this landmark legislation.
The panel was moderated by Professor Beth Ginsberg (UConn Political Science). The panelists were US Congressman Jim Hines; Scot X. Esdaile – CT NAACP State Chair; Professor Harmon; Khalilah L. Brown – Dean Quinnipiac University; Rev. Tommie Jackson – Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church; Michael Pollard – Chief of Staff for Stamford Mayor David Martin; Jasmine Pierre – Future 5 of NAACP; and Peggy Reeves – CT Secretary of State Election Affairs.
The event (April 11) was attended by approximately 75 students and community members. It was held in the main concourse of the Stamford Campus. It was organized by the staff of Congressman Jim Hines; Terrence Cheng, Director of the Stamford Campus; Jack Bryant, President NAACP Stamford Chapter; and Professors Ginsberg and Harmon as part of their Spring 2016 Service Learning Courses.
During the spring semester, Professor Kenneth Couch has made research presentations at the University of Michigan, Northeastern University, and SUNY-Albany.
Professor Couch has published a number of recent articles on the topic of Life Course Events and summarized that research in his presentations at Northeastern and SUNY-Albany. At Michigan, Professor Couch and his co-author presented their research regarding the impact of Social Security earnings statements on individual retirement timing as part of the Michigan Retirement Research Consortium (MRRC) annual meeting. The MRRC annual meeting is an invitation only conference for leading and emerging scholars working on issues related to the Social Security retirement benefit system.
Professor Shor spoke to an audience of 100 CEOs and corporate presidents last week as part of the YPO-WPO Passion For Learning Day in Princeton, NJ.
The Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) – World Presidents’ Organization (WPO) is an international organization for heads of large corporations to network and learn.
The event featured three speakers – Professor Shor joined two professors from the Harvard Business School – who each led a two-hour educational session.
Professor Shor spoke about the practical uses of game theory in business.
Four UConn Economics Alumni participated in a panel on the topic ‘Jobs and Careers’ at the UConn Stamford Campus, March 30, 2016.
The event was attended by 35 economics majors.
The participating alumni: Vitalie Alexandru ’13 (CLAS), currently Financial Analyst – Stress Testing, People’s United Bank; Michael Alpert ’90 (CLAS) Portfolio Manager, Stralem & Company; Pedro DeAbreu ’15 (CLAS) Gartner , Inc.; and Marketing Specialist; and Charles Triano ’87 (CLAS) Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Pfizer, Inc.
All panelists graduated with a major in Economics, two from the Storrs Campus, and two from the Stamford Campus. All were generous with their time, advice regarding courses and participation in college life, and praise for the quality of the UConn undergraduate experience.
Matt Fraulino, CLAS Assistant Director of Alumni Relations Alumni Relations, provided invaluable assistance in organizing the event. The event was co sponsored by: UConn CLAS Alumni Relations, UConn Foundation, and the UConn Stamford Economics Club.
On April 14, 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:
Odrine Belot
Isaac Blyakher
Justin Chan
Sadie Colcord
Cathleen Cormier
Raychel Decker
Geoffrey Donovan
Kelsey Duran
Peter Jiang
Kayla Joyce
Steven Joyce
Patrick Meucci
Kimberley Pepper
Kristina Petruff
Corrin Powell
Fariha Rashid
Matthew Regan
John Shea
Ryan Sherman
Chifan Shi
Josh Spadaro
Leo Villari
Makayla Wall
Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Patrick Adams
Brendan Costello
Kayla Joyce
Kimberly Roland
Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Katherine Harrington
Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Chris Cunningham
William Johnston
Blazej Pulawski
Claudia Rodriguez
Ross Mayer Scholarship
Kimberley Pepper
Economics Department General Scholarship
Caitlin Delaney
Matthew DeLeon
Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Tasneem Ahmed
Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Andrew Carroll
Fariha Rashid
Joseph Roessler
Charles Triano Scholarship
Di Wu
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Ehi Osagie
Hao Ying
Economics Research Award Program
Professor Jorge Aguero & Juan Campanario
Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Tao Song
Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Aaron Cooke
Mike Dinardi
Economics Department Graduate Scholarship
Samantha Minieri
Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
