2013 Spring Awards Banquet

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On April 19, the department convened for an awards banquet to recognize the best among undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. This year’s award recipients are:

Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Andrew Feisher
Allyson Rose
David Greenberg
Nicholas Hynd
Matthew LeBel
Kellyn Maher
Emily Seyle
Alison Zielinski

Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Diana Cooke
Natalie Cooke
Michael DiMaio
Sritheja Gulukota
Stephen Jablonowski
Lydia Kowinko
Yuriy Loukachev
Benjamin Simmons-Telep

Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Stephen Jablonowski

Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Joel Sinofsky
Yuqi Xing

Ross Mayer Scholarship
Michele Carroll
Yuriy Loukachev

Economics Department General Scholarship
Antonio Russo

Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship
Diana Cooke

Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship
Benjamin Simmons-Telep

Graduate Awards
W. Harrison Carter Award
Jesse Kalinowski

Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Paul Tomolonis

Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Bryce Casavant

Economics Department General Scholarship (for 2013: Recognition for Excellence as a Teaching Assistant)
Rebecca Germino
Eric Gibbons
Matthew Joseph Histen
Tao Song

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Bryce Casavant
Elizabeth Kaletski
Zheng Xu
Peijingran Yu
Rong Zhou
Yishu Zhou

Faculty Awards
Grillo Family Research Award
Kenneth Couch

Grillo Family Teaching Award
Susan Randolph

Congratulations to everyone!

Talia Bar to join Economics Department

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New faculty and staff headshots taken at the Anderson Center forDr. Talia Bar will be joining the department this Fall as an assistant professor. She graduated with a PhD. in economics from Yale University in 2003.  She received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and her master’s degree in economics from the Hebrew University in Israel where she grew up. She has worked as an assistant professor at Cornell University, and as a visiting assistant professor at Binghamton University.   Bar’s research interests include industrial organization and microeconomics, mostly she works on firms’ research and development strategies and patent policy as well as issues in economics of higher education. Bar has published articles in, for example, the Journal of Economics Perspectives, the Journal of Labor Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization.

Professor Michael Carter to Visit Campus

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Michael_CarterOn Thursday, April 11, Professor Michael Carter will be on campus as the speaker for the annual Austin Forum on the Economics of Public Policy. Professor Carter directs the BASIS Program, a research consortium funded by USAID that studies rural poverty alleviation strategies in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  He has worked extensively on understanding poverty traps and poverty dynamics, and on the design and evaluation of programs to alleviate rural poverty. 

In addition to giving his lecture at 4:00 p.m., Prof. Carter has graciously offered to speak in Prof. Randolph’s development course (2:00-3:15), as well as Prof. Furtado’s labor course (11:00-12:15).

At 4:00 p.m. in the Dodd Center, Prof. Carter will give a lecture titled “Global Poverty and Food Security: Perspectives and Options.” Faculty, staff, students, and non-university members are invited to attend.

Professor Mike Shor Co-Authors Textbook

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managerialeconomicsManagerial Economics, a textbook co-authored by Professor Mike Shor, was released Monday for sale. The text is a succinct introductory economics textbook targeted primarily at graduate business students.

The book covers traditional material using a problem-based pedagogy built around common business mistakes. Models are used sparingly, and then only to the extent that they help students figure out why mistakes are made, and how to fix them. This edition’s succinct, fast-paced presentation and challenging, interactive applications place students in the role of a decision maker who has to not only identify profitable decisions, but also implement them. The lively book provides an excellent ongoing reference for students pursuing business careers.

Grad students who have had Professor Shor for core Micro Theory may be surprised by the shortage of equations.

Click here to purchase the text from Amazon.

Prof. Alpert presents to The Society of Economic Educators

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alpertProfessor William Alpert presented by invitation a paper entitled, “The Alpha of A Survey of The Literature In Economic And Financial Literacy,” with Professor Oskar R. Harmon to The Society of Economic Educators. The Society  is an elected professional group of economic educators (limited to 30 members who are selected by election). Professor Alpert has served the society as program chair (president elect), President and Past President and has been a member for more than a decade.

Michele Baggio to join the Department

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Dr. Michele Baggio will be joining the department this Fall as an assistant professor. He graduated with a PhD. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland in 2012. Since 2010 he has worked as a senior researcher and lecturer at the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. He is an environmental and natural resource economist who specializes in studying causes and consequences of ecosystem changes in the context of aquatic ecosystems. Professor Baggio has published articles in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Economics, the Journal  of Agriculture Economics, and has several papers under submission. The position he fills is a joint position with the Maritime Studies Program in Avery Point.

Kai Jackie Zhao joins Economics Department

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Jackie Zhao will be joining the department this Fall as an assistant professor. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Western Ontario in 2010, and has taught in the Management Program at Western Ontario since that time. He is a macroeconomist who specializes in examining the linkages between the health care market and the macroeconomy. Professor Zhao has published articles in the BE Journal of Macroeconomics and Applied Economic Letters and has several papers under re-submission in the Review of Economic Dynamics and the Journal of Monetary Economics. He won the T. Merritt Brown Thesis Prize for best doctoral dissertation in Economics at Western Ontario and was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in December of 2012.

Profs. Alpert and Harmon speak at Dept. of Public Policy’s Speaker Series

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publicpolicyspeakerProfessors William Alpert and Oskar Harmon were invited speakers at the Uconn Department of Public Policy Seminar Series, February 19, 2013.

Since Fall 2011, the Economics Department has been experimenting with instruction in fully online format (no in class meetings), and blended format (combination of online lecture and in-class discussion). In their talk, Professors Alpert and Harmon discussed strategy and course design for online/blended classes with large number of sections, and their working paper “The Effectiveness of Interactive Online Exercises across Delivery Format.” Their paper uses a fixed effects model and reports empirical estimates consistent with the hypothesis that participation in interactive learning exercises has a positive effect on exam score at a statistically significant level.

Econ Alumnus Named Among Top Young Economists

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Rangan Gupta, an ’05 PhD graduate under the advisement of Christian Zimmermann, was named one of the top 20 Young Economists (10 years or less) by RePEc. Rangan defended his dissertation titled “Essays on Financial Repression,” in May 2005 and headed to the University of Pretoria, where he is now a full professor.

To view the full rankings, please click here.

Congratulations Rangan!

Jorge Agüero to join Econ Faculty

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Jorge Agüero will be joining the department this Fall as assistant professor. A graduate from University of Wisconsin-Madison,  he is a development economist with a particular interest in the applied microeconomics of development. Professor Agüero has published several articles in the area of Economic Development, including articles in the Journal of Human Resources, American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, and Journal of African Economics and has several papers under re-submission in top Development Economics field journals. The position he fills is a joint position with El Instituto: Institute of Latino/a , Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.