“Agents of Change” Film Screening at Stamford and Storrs

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Professor Oskar Harmon has arranged for the screening of the film “Agents of Change” at the Stamford Campus (2/24 at 6:15 pm) and at the Konover Auditorium on the Storrs Campus (2/25 at 4:30 pm).

Admission is free, open to the public and will have a reception and post screening discussion with the co-producer Abby Ginzberg and writer Ibram Kendi. Also on 2/25 at the Storrs Campus, Abby will present a seminar on documentary film making, and Ibram will present a seminar on racism and diversity.

The film premiered Feb 11 at The 24th Annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival in Los Angeles, and won The Best Documentary Award

http://www.agentsofchangefilm.com

The event is co-sponsored by 12 UConn groups: Institute for African American Studies, Human Rights Institute, American Studies, Dodd Center, AAUP, Humanities Institute, El Instituto: The Institute of Latino, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, Digital Media Center, UCONN Stamford, UCONN Student Government Association, The Connecticut Information Technology Institute and School of Business, and the UConn Stamford Economics Club.

Poster for the film Agents of Change

Professor Ross Has Lead Article in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

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rossProfessor Steve Ross’s paper “The Vulnerability of Minority Homeowners in the Housing Boom and Bust” with Patrick Bayer and Fernando Ferreira was the lead article in the February issue of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

In this paper, they find that African-American and Hispanic borrowers have substantially higher delinquency and foreclosure rates during the financial crisis even after controlling for detailed borrower and loan risk factors.  These differences are concentrated heavily among homebuyers who purchased their home very near the peak of the market, even after controlling for negative equity associated with the timing of the purchase.  For refinance mortgages, they find a similar pattern linked to when the home was purchased, rather than the date of the refinance mortgage.

They argue that the findings are consistent with higher risk borrowers, especially higher risk minority borrowers, being drawn into the market during the housing market expansion.

Professor Langlois Provides Testimony to the UK House of Lords

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langloisProfessor Richard Langlois was recently asked by a staffer of the UK House of Lords to contribute written testimony on an inquiry into “online platforms and the EU Digital Single Market.”

They wanted to hear about the concept of dynamic competition, and provided a set of questions to answer.

The testimony has now been published on Parliament’s website.

Professor Prakash’s Recent Publications

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Pprakashrofessor Nishith Prakash’s work has been featured recently in several publications.

An article that he co-authored with Marc Rockmore and Yogesh Uppal on The Economic Consequences of Accused Politicians in India has been published in the Centre for Economic Policy Research’s policy portal, Vox.

His work with co-author Sanjeev Kumar on the possible unintended consequences of an alcohol ban meant to stem violence against women has been published in several locations, including The Times of India

Blanket alcohol ban in Bihar won’t stop violence against women

and has been picked up by the Huffington Post.

Professor Naknoi Presents Paper at ASSA

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naknoiProfessor Naknoi presented her paper titled “Exchange Rate Pass-Through and Market Structure in a Multi-Country World” in the ASSA Meeting/Econometric Society Meeting in San Francisco on January 4, 2016.

Her model proposes a theory that exporters take into account competing exporters’ currency appreciation in their price setting. In addition, her study provides evidence supporting her theory using data on prices of Canada’s exports to the U.S.

Information about her session is online at:

https://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2016conference/program/preliminary.php

Professor Ross Gives Opening Address at Dallas Federal Reserve Conference

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rossProfessor Ross gave the opening address at the Dallas Federal Reserve conference on “Intent vs. Impact: Evaluating Individual- and Community-Based Programs” on November 16th and 17th.

He summarized much of his research on race, neighborhood and mortgage lending over the last few years. Professor Ross argued that systematic unexplained racial differences in high cost lending and foreclosure exist and that those differences are associated with the concentration of minority borrowers and loans from low income and minority neighborhoods at high cost/high risk lenders. However, Professor Ross also argued that lending to vulnerable, low income and minority borrowers had little to do with severity of the foreclosure crisis itself given that the majority of foreclosure differences were explained by risk factors rather than income or neighborhood, and the dollar volume of foreclosures nationally was primarily driven by middle and upper income borrowers living in suburban neighborhoods. His presentation slides can be found at

http://www.dallasfed.org/cd/events/2015/15intent.cfm

and substantial amount of the research discussed is contained in Bayer, Ferreira and Ross (NBER Working Papers #19020 and #20762).

Professors Harmon and Alpert Present Papers at the Southern Economic Association Meetings

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Professors Harmon and Alpert presented two papers at the Southern Economic Association meetings in November.

Harmon presented their paper with Robert Szarka, “Using Google Apps in Economics Courses” and Alpert presented their paper “Who Takes Online Courses at Public Universities?”

Harmon and Alpert also organized two sessions and discussed papers at two sessions. As a capstone Harmon organized and Professor Harmon chaired a panel discussion entitled Labor Market Transitions in the Great Recession featuring Professor Kenneth Couch and including Dr. Robert K Triest, of the Federal Reserve of Boston.

UConn Well Represented at Southern Economic Association Meetings

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The UConn Economics Department was well represented by faculty and graduate students attending the annual Conference of the Southern Economics Association held in New Orleans at the beginning of the Thanksgiving break. Those in attendance included Jorge Agüero, Ken Couch, David Simon, William Alpert, Matt Ross, Tao Song, Ling Huang, and Oskar Harmon.

Professor Mike Shor participates in Science Salon on Climate Change

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Last Thursday, eighty Hartford-area residents met at NIXS in Hartford for cocktails and a discussion of climate change, part of UConn’s ongoing Science Salon series.

Professor Shor discussed his latest research about how people process (and ignore) scientific evidence in favor of preconceived notions. One audience member (failing to appreciate the irony) told the entire panel of scientists that he does not believe a word of what they are saying but their “so called facts” conflict with his prior view.

Background:

For the first Science Salon (including Dick Langlois): http://econ.uconn.edu/2015/06/08/professor-langlois-at-uconns-first-science-salon/