Monika Lopez-Anuarbe defended her thesis on Friday, February 19, 2010, under the supervision of Prof. Dennis Heffley. Her dissertation examines the time and money transfers between elderly parents and their offspring, particularly inter vivos monetary gifts by parents and time assistance by children. Using a unique panel database containing detailed information on thousands of families over a 10-year period (1993-2002), Monika was able to uncover some interesting links that earlier cross-sectional studies have missed. The analysis suggests that intergenerational transfers between parents and their children are planned processes that unfold over time and are affected by the characteristics of the parents and the offspring. The study also helps to identify specific state policies that have been most effective in encouraging family-based health care for the elderly. As a graduate student, Monika taught courses at the Storrs, Hartford, and Avery Point campuses, as well at Trinity College and Wesleyan University. Since 2006, she has taught principles courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics, intermediate microeconomics, health economics and industrial organization as a Visiting Instructor at Connecticut College. For the past several years, Monika also has published various elements of her research (Long-Term Care Interface Journal, 2007), co-authored papers based on earlier team studies (Journal of the American Dental Association, 2005), and has presented her findings at several professional conferences and academic seminars.
Faculty
Spring 2010 issue of The Connecticut Economy examines the state budget and local property markets
With jobs disappearing, unemployment growing and Connecticut facing an ongoing budget nightmare—in an election year no less—the Spring 2010 issue of The Connecticut Economy: A University of Connecticut Quarterly Review analyzes the state’s grim budget prospects, and examines the economic consequences of local policies—including zoning controls, taxes, spending and regional cooperation—that affect property values and the housing mix.
The latest issue examines the state’s economy and finds plenty to still raise concerns: high unemployment, slow job growth, and red-ink budgets at all levels of government. With education claiming a large portion of public spending, especially at the town level, “A Forward Look” by John Yrchik, Executive Director of the Connecticut Education Association (CEA), argues that Governor M. Jodi Rell’s use of federal stimulus money will disadvantage K-12 education when the extra funding runs out. Yrchik spoke and responded to media questions when editors of The Connecticut Economy presented their findings at a March 10th press release event at the Hartford offices of the CEA.
Connecticut has resorted to borrowing, one-shot fixes, and tinkering to balance its budgets; but those days will end in July 2011, contends Quarterly co-editor Arthur Wright in an analysis of the state’s enduring budget saga. That’s when Connecticut’s budget for the next biennium, FY2012-FY2013, begins. Whether the state’s political leaders cut the deficit via higher taxes or reduced spending, the challenge will be to choose the best combination, says Wright, adding: “Better as a state, and as individual voters, we begin facing such issues this year, with so many elections for State offices going on.”
There is little question that Connecticut is an old state and growing older. The 39.4 median age of the state’s population ranks it the 7th oldest state in the nation. So, if Connecticut hopes to replace its aging, retirement-bound baby-boomers with a cadre of younger workers, it has to import them with a mix of challenging jobs, good pay and affordable housing, notes Quarterly Executive Editor Steven Lanza. Yet, like towns all across America, Connecticut communities have long used zoning controls to regulate the pace, mix and location of development. Lanza examines whether zoning works at cross-purposes with broader public policy objectives such as attracting young professionals to a rapidly graying state.
To shed light on how local policies affect real property values, recent UConn PhD Ekaterina Gnedenko (Agricultural & Resource Economics) and co-editor Dennis Heffley apply an “open-city” model to examine how local public policies—including municipal taxes, spending, zoning and regional cooperation—affect property values. The model’s underlying assumption—that town officials seek to maximize local property values—is a controversial one. But they note that “…if property values reflect not just a town’s site and socioeconomic conditions, but also ‘how the town is run’—then public officials who seek to enhance property values may be serving the interests of their constituents well.”
The editors and Quarterly contributors also:
- Map the change in percent of available land used for development purposes between 1985 and 2006 across Connecticut’s 169 towns, based on satellite images.
- Provide a region-by-region look at Connecticut’s economic performance, analyzing jobs, unemployment, housing prices and permits for the state’s four largest market areas.
- Use tables, charts and commentary to report labor market data for Connecticut, showing higher unemployment rates across the board.
- Forecast deeper job losses than previously estimated, but the start of recovery during 2010 and 2011.
For free access to this and other issues of The Connecticut Economy, visit: http://cteconomy.uconn.edu/.
Profs Coşgel and Miceli publish on state and religion
Professors Metin Coşgel and Thomas Miceli have recently published an article titled “State and Religion.” The paper develops a theoretical and empirical analysis of the historical relationship between government and religion. The authors argue that an important function of religion throughout history has been to help legitimize the state, thereby reducing both its cost of tax collection and its susceptibility to being overthrown by popular revolt. In this sense, the model is an effort to formalize Marx’s famous dictum that religion serves as “an opiate of the masses.” The model also tries to explain why some regimes, notably communist, have tried to suppress religion. If the actions of the state are contrary to religious doctrine, for example, the state may find it necessary to suppress practice of that religion in order to maintain power. The paper uses a rich set of cross-country data on the relationship between religion and state, as well as examples drawn from history, to evaluate the predictions of the model.
This article, which was published in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics (UConn working paper version), is part of a larger research agenda that Professors Cosgel and Miceli have recently embarked upon that seeks to examine the interaction of religious, political, and legal institutions from an economic perspective.
PhD alumna to study the Russian Far-East
Dr. Natalia V Smirnova is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business and Economics at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Riverdale, NY. Her areas of expertise include Russian economic transformation, issues of women in the labor force and pedagogical matters related to active learning techniques. She holds BA in Economics and Ph.D. in Statistics from St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance, Russia; MA in Economics from Queens College/CUNY, and Ph. D. in Economics from the University of Connecticut, the latter under the supervision of Prof. Alpert.
Dr. Smirnova participated in the Teaching Innovations Program (TIP) sponsored by the Committee on Economic Education of the American Economic Association and funded by the National Science Foundation, and completed “Experiments” and “Cooperative Learning Exercises” modules. For outstanding teaching practices and overall command with students she received Wal-Mart Teaching Excellence Award presented by the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), Region 1, in 2007.
She was selected in late May for the US Embassy Policy Specialist (EPS) program, which is coordinated through the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX). This program supports US embassies and consulates overseas by providing policy specialists-in-residence. Dr. Smirnova will be in the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok, Russia, during March-April 2010 researching the current and future states of economic development in the Russian Far East and the opportunities for improvement of labor market participation of Russian women.
The Russian Far East is an important regional power, both within Russia and within the Pacific Rim. The infrastructure, economic diversification, competitiveness, entrepreneurship, environment and energy efficiency of the region are among the priorities cited by different sources. During this assignment, Dr. Smirnova intends to conduct economic analysis of policies and projects in these priority areas. The focus is to find ways to attract U.S. businesses and investors to the Russian Far East.
The second part of the project is planned to study women’s labor force participation with the aim of identifying policies that could increase the employment opportunities for American companies doing business in Russia. Dr. Smirnova would like to gain a better understanding of factors affecting women’s labor market outcomes, especially in foreign firms.
Prof. Matschke publishes in Canadian Journal of Economics
Earlier this month, Prof. Xenia Matschke got a paper accepted in the Canadian Journal of Economics. The paper titled “Trade Policy in Majoritarian Systems: The Case of the U.S.” was coauthored with Per Fredriksson (University of Louisville) and Jenny Minier (University of Kentucky). A previous version of this paper was published as UConn Economics Working Paper, “For Sale: Trade Policy in Majoritarian Systems“. Another paper by the same authors on the influence of a majoritarian electoral system on environmental tax policies was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (see blog entry).
In the current paper on trade policy in majoritarian systems, Matschke and her coauthors provide a theory of trade policy determination that incorporates the protectionist bias inherent in majoritarian systems, as suggested by Grossman and Helpman (2005). The prediction that emerges is that in majoritarian systems, the majority party favors industries located disproportionately in majority districts. The authors test this prediction using U.S. data on tariffs, Congressional campaign contributions, and industry location in districts represented by the majority party over the period 1989-97. They find evidence of a significant majority bias in trade policy for the years when Democrats were the majority party in Congress. An industry’s estimated benefit from being represented by the majority party appears at least as large in magnitude as the benefit from lobbying.
Undergraduate Mark Connolly chosen as University Scholar
For the second time in recent months, the Economics Department has had one of its students, Mark Connolly, chosen for the prestigious designation of University Scholar. Mark’s selection follows on the heels of the selection in August of Philip Gorecki, a double major in economics and molecular and cell biology. Administered by the Honors Program, the highly-selective University Scholars program is designed to provide “the most academically elite students at UConn” an opportunity to advance their UConn education through this special program. A key part of the program is in-depth and focused research on a project of the student’s choice. Mark was one of only 24 students recently selected as 2010 University Scholars.
Mark is pursuing dual degrees in Accounting and Economics, and is working toward his CPA degree. He is particularly interested in auditing and in environmental economics and has thus chosen to focus his project on environmental auditing. He will be studying the role that accounting firms can and do play in environmental auditing, and the potential for auditing to provide valuable information both to the audited firms and to the public. He is particularly interested in the use of audits as third-party certification. Mark will be interning this summer with PricewaterhouseCoopers to gain a greater understanding of the audit process. His faculty advisors on this project will be Professor Lawrence Gramling in the School of Business, and Professors Kathleen Segerson and Olivier Morand, both in Economics.
One advantage of the Scholars’ program is the flexibility it offers students in designing their plans of study. Mark has structured his plan of study and remaining coursework to give him the background necessary for his project. In the course of doing this, he will also be preparing himself for his next goal, graduate study in environmental economics. One day he hopes to be a research professor bridging the gap between industry and environmental protection.
Mark your calendar for the inaugural Austin Forum
On Thursday, April 1, the day before the Graduate Reunion and Forum, the Department of Economics will host the first Philip E. Austin Forum on Economics and Public Policy. The purpose of the Forum is to provide an opportunity for discussion and debate about current public policy issues from an economic perspective. The Forum is funded through the Philip E. Austin Endowed Chair, which is currently held by Economics Professor Kathleen Segerson.
Given the prominence of the current debate about climate change, including the recent international climate change summit in Copenhagen, we have chosen to focus this first Austin Forum on this important and controversial issue. The featured speaker at the Forum will be Harvard environmental economist Robert Stavins, who will present a talk entitled “Climate Change Policy After Copenhagen”. Professor Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. He is a world-renowned economist, who has been working on the economics of climate change and the design of “cap-and-trade” systems for decades. Professor Stavins was recently honored as a 2009 Fellow [pdf] of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). The award was given by Professor Segerson, who is the current President of AERE, at the annual AERE luncheon at the ASSA meetings in Atlanta . In bestowing the award, she quoted from letters of support that stated: “In my view, no other environmental economist can match Rob in the ability to work effectively with policy makers…I cannot think of another current environmental economist who straddles more effectively the academic and policy communities” and Rob “has probably done more than any other single environmental economist to bring the idea of tradable emission permits (“cap and trade”) to the attention of policy-makers as a viable alternative for the management of pollution levels.” Professor Stavins also writes a regular blog on An Economic View of the Environment.
The Austin Forum is scheduled for 4:00 PM in the Student Union Auditorium and is open to all interested members of the UConn community and the public. President Emeritus Philip Austin, Provost Peter Nicholls, and CLAS Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum plan to attend this event.
Recent PhD grad to publish in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Recent graduate James Boudreau, advised by Vicki Knoblauch, will publish the paper “Stratification and Growth in Agent-Based Matching Markets” in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. The relationship between economic mobility and growth has long been a focus of economists’ attention, and James’ paper contributes to that literature by emphasizing the dynamic impacts of two-sided matching.
The model economy in the paper features heterogeneous agents that compete in an intergenerational match game for employment. Agents known as workers make productivity-enhancing investments, using their endowed wealth to add to pre-existing ability levels as they compete to match with other agents known as firms. A novel feature of the model is its use of the market’s matching process as an evolutionary fitness selection mechanism. Workers that are unable to find a match drop out of the population and thus do not contribute to current or future productive capacity. Those that do match are able to pass on their attributes, but in a manner that is not fully deterministic. Because of the stochastic element to inheritance, results are arrived at by way of agent-based simulations. Even with perfect information and substantial variety in both offspring and entrants, two-sided matching inevitably causes the population to evolve into stratified groups. Corrective measures are possible to improve mobility, but by altering the path of market evolution, a policy may have unintended impacts on growth and inequality.
Phd Alumnus joins University of Reading
Anupam Nanda, 2006 PhD alumnus in Economics, has joined the faculty of Real Estate and Planning, Henley Business School at University of Reading (United Kingdom), one of the world’s leading centers for real estate education and research. His doctoral dissertation was advised by Prof. Stephen Ross, Prof. John Clapp, and Prof. Dennis Heffley. Previously, he worked with Deloitte , Market Intelligence group in Mumbai, and the Economics group of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) in Washington DC. His research papers have appeared in Journal of Urban Economics and The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Anupam’s research interests are in real estate economics, empirical finance as well as urban economics and local public finance. He is currently working on the minimum services mandate for the real estate brokers.
Prof. Zimmermann to speak at British Library event
Prof. Christian Zimmermann is to speak at the end of the week at a conference at the British Library in London on subject repositories. These are collections or works and research, like the DigitalCommons at the University of Connecticut, but for subjects instead of institutions. The two prime examples of subject repositories are arXiv for Physics and RePEc for Economics. Prof. Zimmermann will talk about the latter, in particular how it came to grow with very little resources.
The conference will in particular feature the official launch of a new online service for Economists, the Nereus lead EconomistOnline portal, which at this point relies heavily on data from RePEc. Prof. Zimmermann will conclude his European trip by giving further talks at the German universities of Cologne, Dortmund, Giessen and Darmstadt.