Prof. Jorge Aguero Awarded Grant from IADB

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Professor Jorge Agüero has been awarded a small grant from the Inter American Development Bank (based in Washington, D.C.) for his project “Long-Term Effect of Climate Change on Health: Evidence from Heat Waves in Mexico.

Abstract
I use random year-to-year variation in temperature to estimate the long-term effects of climate change on health outcomes in Mexico. Using temperature data at the district level and three rounds of nationally representative household surveys, I match an individual’s health as an adult with the history of heat waves in each stage of her life cycle until adulthood. This provides a sample of over 75,000 individuals born between 1960 and 1990. The richness of the data allows me to contribute to the existing literature in several ways. First, I use temperature data within states, which permits a more precise estimation of the effect of climate change. Second, I estimate the long-term effects by examining whether exposure to extreme temperatures early in life affects adult health. Third, the model permits the comparison of exposure early in life vis-à-vis later periods, allowing me to identify the critical health periods with respect to temperature. Finally, the project will explore heterogeneous effects by gender, location, poverty level of the area, and access to resources. The results of this investigation will provide academics and policy makers with the most comprehensive analysis about the long-term effects of climate change on health outcomes in the region.

More info to come as the project moves forward.

Congratulations, Professor Agüero.

Prof. Kai Zhao has paper accepted for publication

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sealProfessor Kai Zhao has had his article titled “War Finance and the Baby Boom” for publication in Review of Economic Dynamics.

The abstract of the article is below.

In this paper, I extend the Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility to incorporate specific fiscal policies and use it to study the effects of the fiscal policy changes following WWII on fertility in the United States. The US government went through large changes in fiscal policy after the beginning of WWII. The marginal income tax rate for an average American jumped from 4% on average before 1940 to approximately 25% during the war and stayed around 20% afterwards. The government debt-GDP ratio jumped from approximately 30% on average before WWII to 108% in 1946 and then dropped gradually in the following two decades to about 30% again at the end of 1960s. I find that the dramatic increase in the marginal income tax rate was an important cause of the postwar baby boom in the US because it lowered the after-tax wage and thus the opportunity cost of child-rearing. I also find that the differential change in taxes by income was an important reason why the baby boom was more pronounced among richer households (as documented by Jones and Tertilt (2008)). Furthermore, I argue that the government’s debt policy may also matter for understanding fertility choices because government debt implies a tax burden on children in the future and thus affects their utility, which is a key determinant of current fertility choice in the Barro-Becker model. The results of a computational experiment show that the US government’s postwar debt policy also contributed to the baby boom, but its quantitative importance is relatively small.

The article in its entirety may be read on the Economics Department’s Working Paper Series.

 

Archita Banik defends, heads to Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

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Archita Banik defended her dissertation on Monday, July 22nd 2013. Her dissertation entitled “Three Essays on Health Economics” was completed under the supervision of her major advisor Dennis Heffley and associate advisors Thomas Miceli and Nishith Prakash.

Archita’s dissertation analyzes an incentive-based health insurance plan in the context of developing countries and also examines the importance of different socioeconomic factors and presence of microcredit in determining ever-married women’s health in the context of India. The first essay of her dissertation is a theoretical analysis where she analyzes an individual’s behavior with misperceived health risk under incentive-based health insurance plan vs. a conventional plan. The other two essays are empirical studies in the context of India where she shows that age, education, marital status, and presence of microcredit are important factors in determining ever-married women’s health in India.

Archita is heading to Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, where she will join as a tenure-track assistant professor of economics starting from Fall.

Congratulations, Archita!

Professor Prakash Cited in Media

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t_prakash[1]Two of Professor Nishith Prakash‘s works have been cited recently in the media.

His work with Aimee Chin concerning affirmative action in India was cited in The Economist.

A paper he collaborated on with Chin and Mehtabul Azam was cited by Business Standard.

Professor Prakash is currently in India collecting data for his Affirmative Action project. Later this month he will be in the state of Bihar holding meetings with government officials and school authorities for a new project focused on reducing gaps in learning outcomes across different caste groups.

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Prof. Kathleen Segerson Honored by UConn Alumni Association

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segersonKathleen Segerson, Philip E. Austin Professor of Economics, has been awarded the 2013 University of Connecticut Distinguished Professor Award. 

The UConn Alumni Association established the Distinguished Professor award in 1976 for “an excellent teacher as well as an individual of international reputation whose scholarship reflects substantial credit to the University of Connecticut – a renaissance person.” 

Kathleen Segerson, an environmental economist, earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Dartmouth and her doctorate in agricultural and resource economics from Cornell. She studies the incentive effects of alternative environmental policy instruments, including applications in groundwater contamination, hazardous waste management, land use regulation, and climate change. She’s also taken part in projects related to ecosystem services and to marine species protection.

Fellowships include the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, of which she has served as president and vice president, and the American Agricultural Economics Association. Kathleen is a member of the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Academy of Sciences and a handling editor for the journal Conservation Biology.

She was co-editor and associate editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and an associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Past service also includes the Chartered Board of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board and several advisory committees for the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Segerson will be honored at the Alumni Association Awards Celebration on Friday, October 11, 2013 at the UConn Storrs Campus, and the following day at the UConn Homecoming Game at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut.

Matt Schurin Defends, Heads to PricewaterhouseCoopers

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sealOn May 28th, Matt Schurin defended his dissertation entitled, “Three Essays on Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Fluctuations.”  His major advisor is Christian Zimmermann and his associate advisors are Dong Jin Lee and Richard Suen.

Matt’s dissertation analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and examines what optimal policy should be in response to macroeconomic fluctuations.  The first dissertation chapter explores what the government’s fiscal policy should be when banks hold significant amounts of public debt and the government can default on its debt obligations.  The second dissertation chapter analyzes the effects of fiscal austerity using a two-sector small open economy model that is calibrated to the Canadian economy.  Results from this model coincide with key characteristics of the Canadian economy.  The third chapter examines the impact of government debt on macroeconomic volatility in an environment where, going forward, the government is required to balance its budget.  The model in this chapter can help explain why developing countries have more volatile output and more countercyclical net exports than developed countries.

Matt is heading to McLean, VA where he will work for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their transfer pricing group.

Congratulations, Matt, on all your hard work!