The M.A. program in Economics at the University of Connecticut has been ranked #38 of the 157 programs evaluated in the Financial Engineer’s 2015 Master of Economics Rankings.
A variety of factors are used to evaluate each program, including acceptance rates, the employment prospects for new graduates, and starting salaries and bonuses. The results are considered “”the most comprehensive rankings for graduate financial economics programs in the United States.”
Professor Naknoi presented her paper on exchange rate pass-through in the annual meeting of the Society for Economic Dynamics, which was held in Warsaw, Poland, June 25-27.
Book Review
Paul Hallwood, Economics of the Oceans: Rights, Rents and Resources. Oxon and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 298 pages. ISBN: 978-0-415-63911-8.
“Economics of the Oceans fills a critical gap between broad environmental economics texts and marine resource texts focused on only one resource. Its major strength is the ease with which Paul Hallwood blends background information, case studies and economic theory.
“Over fifty percent of the book is on non-fish resources and includes important ocean resource topics such as coral reef protection, mineral extraction, ocean pollution, maritime piracy and shipwreck recovery. The major strength of the book is the ease with which the author blends background information, interesting case studies and economic theory. The book is a great example of just how applicable basic microeconomic principles are to a range of policy issues (even in the often anarchic world of the ocean).
“The general theme of Economics of the Oceans is that property rights are what really matter in the ocean. This will come as no surprise to economists but the stark differences in outcomes across settings that differ primarily in terms of rights may surprise even the most ardent Coaseans. As an illustrative example, Hallwood cleverly compares and contrasts oil with fish. Offshore oil is heavily regulated in most countries with clear property rights and generates significant rents for host governments. Fish populations are poorly regulated in the waters of many countries with unclear property rights and generate little economic rents. Why this has come about and what can be done to remedy this situation is one of the key lessons in Economics of the Oceans.”
John Lynham, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University. (Applied Economics Journal Vol. 21 No. 2 (December 2014): 105-108).5
Professor
Harmon took part in the panel “Nontraditional Magic: Online and Service-Learning Pedagogy and Teaching,” joining panelists: Diana Rios, UConn Professor of Communication and El Instituto, and UConn Professor Carl Salsedo, Extension Educator, Horticulture, at the 2015 American Association of University Professors Conference on the State of Higher Education, Washington, D.C. June 11, 2015.
The roundtable focused on reconfiguring traditional “live” ways of learning and lecturing into another kind of “magic.” Contemporary “magic” refers to dynamic inspiration to share knowledge and to instigate learning among Millennials.
Professor Michele Baggio has had two papers published this spring:
“Optimal Fishery Management with Regime Shifts: An Assessment of Harvesting Strategies,” in Environmental and Resource Economics
“Modeling adaptation in multi-state resource systems,” with co-author Charles Perrings, in Ecological Economics.
Photo credit: BMI Murithi and Nation Media Group
The Department mourns the loss of one of its own. Prof. Kimenyi was a former member of the Department before leaving to join the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. According to BMI Muriithi of the Daily Nation, he passed away on Saturday, June 6, at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, after a long illness. BMI Muriithi’s article in Daily Nation is available here.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his wife, Irene, and his three sons. Condolences and sympathy can be sent to: Irene Wangui Kimenyi , 2011 Wheaton Haven Court, Silver Springs, MD 20902.
The following is a note of memorium written by Prof. Richard Langlois:
A note in memorium of Mwangi S. (Samson) Kimenyi
from his friends and former colleagues at the University of Connecticut
We in the Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut were truly grieved to hear of Samson’s passing.
Samson came to us in 1991 and left to form KIPPRA in 1999, and was thereafter only sporadically in residence in Storrs. But he was with us for almost the entire decade of the nineties. We had hired him away from the University of Mississippi and awarded him the rank of Associate Professor less than five years after his Ph.D., which is an extraordinary rate of advancement. What attracted us to Samson was his astounding rate of publication, on a variety of topics. Among these publications was work on poverty in the United States, which focused on the importance of family structure – and which won the prize for best paper in the Southern Economic Journal. What we discovered after Samson had been with us a short while is that we had hired a wonderful man as well as a wonderful scholar. Those of us who came to know him well found that family was just not an intellectual interest for him but was part of his being, and we admired his devotion to his wife Irene and his three boys, who largely grew up here in Mansfield.
The problem with hiring a superstar, however, is that the world beckons. As Samson’s interests moved in the direction of African development, and as he became increasingly well known in that field, he was tapped to form KIPPRA and then called to the Brookings Institution. But we always considered Samson to have remained a member of our faculty in spirit. Many of us remember his visit part-way through the KIPPRA experience, which was memorable for a seminar in which he shared with us some of his accomplishments and challenges in Kenya.
In a way, we at UConn had already learned to miss Samson. Knowing that the parting is now final is a tragedy to us. But we will always remember his tenure here; and the spirit of his intellectual achievements and his warm personality will always remain part of our department legacy. We wish his family comfort in their time of grief.
As the dollar appreciates against world currencies, Prof. Naknoi answered questions in UConn Today on the impacts of dollar appreciation on summer travel.
The entire Q&A is published on May 28 in UConn Today:
http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2015/05/strong-dollar-pays-off-for-summer-travel/
Professor Langlois took part in the first UConn Science Salon, joining panelists from across disciplines to discuss “3D Printing: Living Tissue to Human Organ.”
See pictures and highlights from the event at UConn Today.
As the debate on the Trans-Pacific Partnership heats up, Prof. Ahking answered questions in UConn Today on the pros and cons of this trade agreement.
The entire Q&A is published on May 6 in UConn Today.
Professor Mikhael Shor has had his paper, “How collaborative forecasting can reduce forecast accuracy,” accepted by Operations Research Letters.
The brief article compares an independent supplier and retailer who each forecast consumer demand with a jointly-profit-maximizing supplier and retailer who share their forecasts of consumer demand. The move from non-collaborative to collaborative forecasting can have the unexpected impact of decreasing demand forecast accuracy while still increasing profit. Therefore, collaborating firms should maintain a focus on profits, not forecast accuracy, as the appropriate measure of success.