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!

Professor Prakash’s Project Funded by Danish Council for Independent Reserach

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t_prakash[1]A joint project of Professor Nishith Prakash, has been awarded funding from The Danish Council for Independent Research. The award is approximately $600,000 USD.

Details of the project can be found below.

Project title: The Economic and Behavioral Impacts of Anti-Discrimination Policies in the Context of Caste: Learning from Household Surveys, Lab Experiments and Randomized Controlled Trials
P.A.: Nabanita Datta Gupta (Aarhus School of Business)
Institution: Aarhus University
Amount: Danish Kr. 3,478,625

Recent years have seen an increased interest in the economic and non-economic impacts of affirmative action policies across the social sciences, with a majority of the work focusing on developed economies. Unresolved issue relating to the effective design of such policy are how to minimize stigma effects and stereotyping effects, at what ages interventions should take place, and whether these policies carry disincentives for skill investment and if there are any effects on the majority. Affirmative action policy has been adopted in a larger scale in India than elsewhere, with a nation-wide program of reservation (quotas) of new jobs, political seats and slots in higher educational institutions for the historically discriminated lowest-caste groups in Indian society. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists on the causal effects of reservation, in particular, whether such policies better the outcomes of the intended groups more than they would have in the absence of such programs. The aim of the research project is to bring reliable empirical evidence on the economic and behavioral implications of anti-discrimination policies in employment and education, across both children and adults, to better understand the linkages of policies, caste and education and labor market outcomes across the life-cycle, and to find ways to erase persistent inter-group inequalities. The findings are also expected to shed light on current Danish and European research on increasing social segmentation, polarization and out-group discrimination due to migration. 

For more information, please see the following link: http://fivu.dk/en/research-and-innovation/funding-programmes-for-research-and-innovation/who-has-received-funding/2013/grants-from-the-danish-council-for-independent-research-social-sciences-fse-may-2013?set_language=en&cl=en

Professor Delia Furtado wins Refereeing Prize

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banner_economicWhile researchers typically have a horror story or two about unreasonable referees, most will agree that the peer review process is essential for producing good research. Unfortunately, the hard work of referees often goes unacknowledged due to the anonymous nature of their work. The Economic Journal has taken steps to thank the referees who have contributed “beyond the call of duty” with its annual referee prize. Professor Delia Furtado was awarded a prize for her referee work for the journal in 2012. More details here.    

Congratulations, Delia!

**For those new to the “peer review process,” please see a graphic depiction here.

Local High School in National Economics Challenge

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Connecticut Center for Economic Education, Director, Associate Professor of Economics William Alpert, is very happy to announce that in the Center sponsored National Economic Challenge, Choate Rosemary Hall (Waterbury) has finished in the top 8 teams in the Nation!  Choate was one of seven schools in the state to compete and has made it to the “elite 8” — so far.  

You can meet the players here.

Congratulations to Alumnus Marius Jurgilas

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Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė recently signed a decree appointing Marius Jurgilas to the 5-member Board of the Lithuanian Central Bank. Marius was recommended for this appointment by the Advisory Council, a group of prominent economists in the field of finance.  He will assume his new responsibilities on May 15. 

Marius’ appointment to the Board reflects his extensive background, experience, and expertise in the banking sector.  He began developing this expertise during his time as a finance major in the Department of Economics at Vilnius University in Lithuania.  In 2001, he joined the Economics Department here at UConn, where he earned his PhD in 2007 with a field in monetary economics.  Christian Zimmermann, who is now at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, was his major advisor.  His dissertation was on “Interbank Markets under Currency Boards.” 

After finishing his PhD, Marius was an assistant professor at Elon University for a year but left Elon to take a position at the Bank of England, where he worked for three years.  Most recently, he has worked in the Financial Stability Research Department at the Norwegian Central Bank.  He has also spent time at the European Central Bank, SEB Vilniaus Bankas, and Lithuanian Savings Bank, and has been a visiting professor at ISM University of Management ant Economics in Vilnius. 

Marius’ research covers a wide range of topics relating to banking and housing.  Some of his recent publications include:

JURGILAS, M. & Lansing K. J., (2012 June 25 issue) “Housing bubbles and homeownership returns”, FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

GUPTA, R., JURGILAS, M., KABUNDI A. & MILLER M. S. (2012), “Monetary Policy and

Housing Sector Dynamics in a Large-Scale Bayesian Vector Autoregressive Model” International Journal of Strategic Property Management, Vol 16(1): 1-20

GUPTA, R., JURGILAS, M., MILLER, M.S., & WYK, V.D. (2012 January), “Financial Market Liberalization, Monetary Policy, and Housing Sector Dynamics”, International Business and Economics Research Journal, Vol. 11(1).

 For more information about Marius’ appointment, click here.

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.