Faculty

2016 Spring Awards Banquet

Posted on by

Uconn sealOn 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

Wensu Li
Xizi Li
Tian Lou
Shilpa Sethia
Tao Song

Best 3rd-year Paper Award

Andrew Ju
Sungoh Kwon


Faculty Awards

Grillo Family Research Award

David Simon

Grillo Family Teaching Award

Nishith Prakash

Employee Appreciation Awards

Derek Johnson   10 years
Kenneth Couch   20 years
Susan Randolph   30 years
Francis Ahking   35 years

 
Congratulations to everyone!

Ken Couch Receives Research Grant from Social Security Administration

Posted on by

couchProfessor Kenneth Couch has received a research grant from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Couch will work with research staff at SSA to develop micro-simulation models that consider potential adjustments to the Social Security retirement benefit structure in response to increased longevity of Americans.  A key concern is distributional equity of benefits for groups with shorter life expectancies and disproportionate rates of poverty.

Professor Jorge Agüero and Juan Campanario Receive 2016 ERAP Award

Posted on by

Professor Jorge Agüero (faculty) and Juan Campanario (student) are the recipients of the 2016 Undergraduate Economics Research Award Program (ERAP).

Their work on their project “Can Growth and Redistribution Reduce the Influence of Colonial Institutions? The Case of Peru’s Mining Mita” will be supported through the ERAP program, which is designed to  assist research apprenticeships and research collaborations between undergraduate economics majors and economics faculty members.

The ERAP program enables the student to enhance research skills relevant to the field of economics, while the faculty member guides the project and provides mentorship. Only one award is given each academic year, with the student receiving a $1,500 fellowship and the faculty mentor receiving a $1,000 grant added to their departmental research accounts.

Congratulations to the award winning team!

Professor Naknoi Presents Paper at Vanderbilt

Posted on by

naknoiProfessor Naknoi presented her paper titled “Tariffs and the Expansion of the American Pig Iron Industry, 1870-1940” in the International Economics Seminar at Vanderbilt University on April 8, 2016.

Her study examines the benefit of the protection of the American pig iron industry. She illustrates that the protection was critical for the industry before 1890.

Economics Faculty Recognized for Excellence in Teaching

Posted on by

The Provost’s office at the University of Connecticut regularly recognizes faculty members with excellent teaching evaluations commending them as achieving “excellence in teaching”.

A number of faculty members in the economics department have received this recognition in the past year:  Professors Talia Bar, Ken Couch, Delia Furtado, Paul Hallwood, Olivier Morand, Susan Randolph, Kathy Segerson, Mikhael Shor, Owen Svalestad, and Jackie Zhao.

Congratulations to these economics faculty for their important contributions to the educational mission of UConn!

Prof. Ross’s work with Pat Bayer and Fernando Ferreira featured in the Atlantic and the Pacific Standard

Posted on by

rossProfessor Ross’s work with Pat Bayer and Fernando Ferreira has been featured in The Atlantic and the Pacific Standard

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/blacks-hispanics-mortgages/471024/

https://psmag.com/predatory-lending-is-another-form-of-american-housing-discrimination

This paper examines racial and ethnic differences in high cost mortgage lending in seven diverse metropolitan areas from 2004-2007. Even after controlling for credit score and other key risk factors, African-American and Hispanic home buyers are 105 and 78 percent more likely to have high cost mortgages for home purchases.

The increased incidence of high cost mortgages is attributable both to sorting across lenders (60-65 percent) and to differential treatment of equally qualified borrowers by lenders (35-40 percent). The vast majority of the racial and ethnic differences across lenders can be explained by a single measure of the lender’s foreclosure risk, and most of the within-lender differences are concentrated at high-risk lenders.

Thus, differential exposure to high-risk lenders combined with the differential treatment by these lenders explains almost all of the racial and ethnic differences in high cost mortgage borrowing.

Professors Harmon and Lanza at the Eastern Economic Association Conference

Posted on by

Professors Oskar Harmon and Steven Lanza presented a paper “Factors Contributing to Differences in State Economic Outcomes over the Great Recession” at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association in Washington DC, Feb 26, 2016.

Eastern Economic Association BannerThe paper employs a Cox Proportional Hazard model to analyze duration of state recession and recovery spells during the Great Recession.

60th Anniversary of the Early College Experience Program

Posted on by

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Early College Experience (ECE) program at the University of Connecticut.

ECE is a concurrent enrollment program that allows motivated high school students to take UConn courses at their high schools for both high school and college credit. Every course taken through UConn ECE is equivalent to the same course at the University of Connecticut. High school instructors who have been certified through the University of Connecticut serve as adjunct faculty members and teach UConn ECE courses.

Since about 29% of UConn ECE students continue on to the University of Connecticut, the Research & Development team is able to track their progress. UConn ECE students are more likely to graduate on time and to hold higher first and second semester GPA’s than those students who did not participate in the program.

The Department of Economics has participated in the ECE program since the early 1990s with a small number of instructors (two in 2006). Today that number has grown to 35 certified Economics instructors offering all of the principals classes to students in 25 high schools across the state. The Economics ECE coordinator is Professor William Alpert.

Huanan Xu Accepts Position at Indiana University South Bend

Posted on by

Huanan Xu, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics, has accepted a tenure track faculty position in the Judd Leighton School of Business and Economics at Indiana University South Bend.

The Leighton School offers M.B.A. degrees as well as other Masters level programs. IU South Bend has an enrollment of roughly 7,000 undergraduate and 550 graduate students.

Huanan’s thesis committee consists of Ken Couch (Chair), Delia Furtado, and Rob Fairlie (Cal-Santa Cruz).