Professor Shor Presents to Corporate Presidents

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shorProfessor 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.

Stamford Economics Faculty (Profs. Naknoi, Lanza, Harmon and Alpert) Host an Economics Alumni Networking Event

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Economics Alumni 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.

2016 Spring Awards Banquet

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Andrew Ju and Sungoh Kwon Receive ‘Best Third-Year Paper’ Awards

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Graduate students Andrew Ju and Sungoh Kwon have received the Department of Economics’ ‘Best Third-Year Paper’ awards for 2015-2016.

From the abstract of Andrew’s paper State Collective Bargaining Laws and Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials:

In recent years states across the country have considered restricting or eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees, thus sparking a national debate over the compensation of public sector workers. In this paper I contribute evidence to this debate by examining the effects of state collective bargaining laws on public-private sector wage differentials. Using data from the 2000 to 2014 CPS Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (MORG) and a variety of identification strategies, I  find that in states without mandatory collective bargaining laws state and local government workers earn approximately 7 percent less than their private sector counterparts. In contrast, in states with mandatory collective bargaining laws, state and local government workers earn approximately the same as their private sector counterparts.

I also find that state collective bargaining laws play an important role in determining the level of fringe benefits: local government employees in mandatory collective bargaining states have significantly higher probabilities of obtaining an employer-sponsored health insurance or pension plan.

From the abstract of Sungoh’s paper Does Public School Spending Raise Intergenerational Mobility?: Evidence from U.S. School Finance Reforms:

This study provSungoh Kwonides the first quasi-experimental evidence on the relationship between public school spending and intergenerational mobility (IGM). Using a plausibly exogenous variation in school spending induced by U.S. court-mandated school finance reforms and county-by-cohort level measures of IGM, I found no evidence that the increase in public school spending raises future income rank of disadvantaged children in the national distribution, while there is evidence of a slight increase in the rank of advantaged children. When it comes to college attendance, I found that children similarly benefit from additional school spending regardless of family backgrounds. I discuss some possible explanations on the results.

Congratulations, Andrew and Sungoh!

Economics Faculty Recognized for Excellence in Teaching

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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

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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.