Professor Paul Hallwood will have a paper published in Defence and Peace Economics entitled “Quantifying Greed and Grievance in Civil Wars: The American War of Independence”. A strand in the political science literature asks ‘why do civil wars happen’? With blood diamonds in mind one possibility is greed; but in many other cases civil wars are provoked by grievances against the central power – Chechnya and Kosovo come to mind. Hallwood collects data on the cost of British Empire membership and war costs to the American colonists and passes them through his economic model to find that the Americans were over-whelmingly motivated by grievance. In over 200-years of scholarship, while some historians argue as much, others emphasize the greed hypothesis, to be rid of the economic burdens of colonial status. As one historian observed a generation ago, the debate raged on because of a lack of a scientific model to settle the dispute. Hallwood offers such a model.
Faculty
Professor Ross attends HDS 2010 Advisory Council Meeting
Professor Stephen Ross attended the advisory council meeting for the 2010 Housing Discrimination Study at the Urban Institute on Nov 16th. The 2010 Housing Discrimination Study is a nationwide effort to measure the level of racial and ethnic discrimination in U.S. metropolitan areas using pairs of testers sent to the same real estate or rental agency. Professor Ross was the research director for the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study and has been a key advisor on the new study since its inception.
Professor Prakash joins the Editorial Board of Economies
Professor Nishith Prakash was recently invited to join the Editorial Board of Economies. Economies is a newly formed international scientific open access journal of development economics. In addition to reviewing manuscripts, Professor Prakash will be given the opportunity to edit a special issue on a topic closely related to his research.
Professor Harmon Presents at ITL Lunchtime Workshop
Prof. Oskar Harmon co-presented with Professor Steven Park at the Uconn Institute of Teaching and Learning’s lunchtime workshop “Mobile Learn for Students” on Nov. 6 2012. The seminars provide an opportunity to gather with colleagues to listen, discuss, comment, interact, and reflect on a number of topics. Prof. Harmon is part of the Fall 2012 Mobile Learn pilot project exploring the capabilities of the mobile App for BlackBoard Next Generation. At the workshop Prof. Harmon discussed his experience with creating tests, announcements, and multimedia course content for mobile devices.
Econ Professor’s Book Translated into Vietnamese
The book Toward a Market Economy in Vietnam edited by Associate Professor William Alpert has been translated into Vietnamese. The translated title, “Để Tiến Tới Một Nền Kinh Tế Tự Do ở Việt Nam,” changes “market economy” to “free economy,” emphasizing social justice over competition.
Professor Alpert comments that “The Vietnamese are attempting their own version of a Chinese Economic Miracle.”
Professors Alpert and Harmon present at the International Atlantic Economic Conference
Professor William Alpert and Professor Oskar Harmon presented the paper “Using Social Media in the Online Classroom”, co-authored with Joseph Histen, at the 74th International Atlantic Economic Conference in Montreal Canada, October 4-7. The paper discusses issues related to appropriate uses of social media in an instructional setting and presents empirical estimates of the effects of usage of social media on learning outcomes.
Sanglim Lee Update
On August 10, 2012, Sanglim Lee defended his dissertation entitled “Expected Currency Excess Returns and Debt in the Business Cycle,” under the supervision of Professor Christian Zimmermann.
In the first chapter of his dissertation, Sanglim shows that the risk premium is an important factor in explaining deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP) in 20 developed and 18 developing countries. In the second chapter, he further examines the UIP condition with a two-country International Real Business Cycle model and shows that the business cycle risk driven by total factor productivity can account for deviations from UIP. The third chapter examines the effects of fiscal austerity on the Canadian economy using a two-sector small open economy model. The model’s simulation results indicate that the effect of fiscal austerity on the economy depends crucially on the relationship between public-debt levels and country-risk premiums.
Starting on October 8th, Sanglim works as a research fellow at the Korea Energy Economics Institute in South Korea.
Professor Prakash in the Media
The London School of Economics has cited Professor Prakash’s paper on education and incentives in Bihar in their blog. The paper, titled “Education Policies and Practices: What Have We Learnt and the Road Ahead for Bihar,” has also been covered by Ideas for India, which Professor Prakash was invited to join earlier this year.
Professor Prakash has also published a non-technical summary of his paper “The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India” in VOX. VOX is a policy portal that aims to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars.
Professor Nishith Prakash has been invited to Growth Week 2012, a three day conference held by the International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics. Professor Prakash spent time at the IGC this summer as an academic visitor. The conference will be held from September 24-26.
Professor Shor Named Associate Editor of Economic Inquiry
Economic Inquiry, a general interest journal, has named Professor Mike Shor as Associate Editor. Published since 1962, Economic Inquiry is widely regarded as one of the top scholarly journals in its field.
Economic Inquiry has taken steps in recent years to diversify its areas of specialization. Professor Shor will primarily be assisting in the newly developed area of Competition Economics.
Professor Prakash’s Article Accepted in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Professor Nishith Prakash’s article titled “Consumption and Social Identity: Evidence from India” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
Abstract:
We examine spending on consumption items which have signaling value in social interactions across groups with distinctive social identities in India, where social identities are defined by caste and religious affiliations. Using nationally representative micro data on household consumption expenditures, we find that disadvantaged caste groups such as Other Backward Castes spend eight percent more on visible consumption than Brahmin and High Caste groups while social groups such as Muslims spend fourteen percent less, after controlling for differences in permanent income, household assets and household demographic composition. The differences across social groups are significant and robust and these differences persist within different sub populations. We find that the higher spending of OBC households on visible consumption is diverted from education spending, while Muslim households divert spending from visible consumption and education towards greater food spending. Additionally, we find that these consumption patterns can be partly explained as a result of the status signaling nature of the consumption items. We also discuss alternative sources of differences in consumption patterns across groups which stem from religious observance.