Professor Randolph and Ph.D. candidate Patrick Flaherty on WHUS

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whuslogo[1]One of Connecticut’s National Public Radio stations, WSHU, launched a program Thursday November 28th called the “State of Disparity.” The program focuses on inequality in Connecticut.  The research of Professor Susan Randolph, Emeritus Professor William Lott, and Ph.D. candidate Patrick Flaherty provided background information for the program, some of which was published in The Connecticut Economy.  Both Professor Randolph and Patrick Flaherty and were interviewed by Craig LeMoult. 

The launch of the program along with some sound clips from the interview can be heard on Morning Edition (See November 28th entry) can be found at the website devoted to the program:   http://www.stateofdisparity.org/ .  

Click below to see the two articles from The Connecticut Economy that provided background to the program.

What Drives Income Inequality Among Connecticut’s Families?

Nutmeg Haves and Have Nots: How Wide the Divide?

Professor Segerson appointed to the NAS Review Panel of the National Climate Assessment

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The National Climate Assessment, which is conducted every four years and submitted to the President and Congress, provides an assessment of the state of knowledge about climate change and its impacts in the U.S.  The report was mandated by the 1990 Global Change Research Act.  The first assessment was produced in 2000, and the next one is due to be released in 2013.  By statute, before release, it must be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences.  NAS has recently put together the panel that will review the report.  The 23-member panel is comprised of scholars from across the country in a wide range of fields.  Professor Kathleen Segerson has been appointed as a panel member.  As part of her appointment, she will be responsible for providing comments and feedback on the draft report to the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, which is responsible for preparing the report.  After the review process is completed, the final report will be available to the public at http://www.globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/nca-overview.

Interpreting the American Revolution as Civil War

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Professor Paul Hallwood will have a paper published in Defence and Peace Economics entitled “Quantifying Greed and Grievance in Civil Wars: The American War of Independence”.  A strand in the political science literature asks ‘why do civil wars happen’? With blood diamonds in mind one possibility is greed; but in many other cases civil wars are provoked by grievances against the central power – Chechnya and Kosovo come to mind.  Hallwood collects data on the cost of British Empire membership and war costs to the American colonists and passes them through his economic model to find that the Americans were over-whelmingly motivated by grievance. In over 200-years of scholarship, while some historians argue as much, others emphasize the greed hypothesis, to be rid of the economic burdens of colonial status. As one historian observed a generation ago, the debate raged on because of a lack of a scientific model to settle the dispute.  Hallwood offers such a model.

Professor Ross attends HDS 2010 Advisory Council Meeting

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Professor Stephen Ross attended the advisory council meeting for the 2010 Housing Discrimination Study at the Urban Institute on Nov 16th.  The 2010 Housing Discrimination Study is a nationwide effort to measure the level of racial and ethnic discrimination in U.S. metropolitan areas using pairs of testers sent to the same real estate or rental agency.  Professor Ross was the research director for the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study and has been a key advisor on the new study since its inception.

Seminar Series: Alumnus Jeffrey Milyo

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On Friday, November 16, the Economics Department welcomed back an illustrious alumnus as a speaker in the department’s weekly seminar series.  Jeffrey Milyo ’86, Middlebush Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Missouri, spoke on “Campaign Finance Reform and the ‘Actuality and Appearance’ of Corruption.”

Milyo graduated from UConn as an Honors and University Scholar, which allowed him to receive the B.A. and M.A. in Economics simultaneously.  He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford, and went on to positions at Tufts and the University of Chicago before coming to Missouri.

Using differences in campaign-finance laws among U. S. states as a natural experiment, Milyo’s seminar paper tested empirically the effect of campaign-finance reform on corruption in government.  His conclusion is that campaign finance reform has no discernible effect on levels of corruption.

Professor Harmon Presents at ITL Lunchtime Workshop

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Prof. Oskar Harmon co-presented with Professor Steven Park at the Uconn Institute of Teaching and Learning’s lunchtime workshop “Mobile Learn for Students” on Nov. 6 2012.  The seminars provide an opportunity to gather with colleagues to listen, discuss, comment, interact, and reflect on a number of topics. Prof. Harmon is part of the Fall 2012 Mobile Learn pilot  project exploring the capabilities of the mobile App for BlackBoard Next Generation.  At the workshop Prof. Harmon discussed  his experience with creating tests, announcements, and multimedia course content for mobile devices.

Econ Professor’s Book Translated into Vietnamese

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The book Toward a Market Economy in Vietnam edited by Associate Professor William Alpert has been translated into Vietnamese. The translated title, “Để Tiến Tới Một Nền Kinh Tế Tự Do ở Việt Nam,” changes “market economy” to “free economy,” emphasizing social justice over competition.

Professor Alpert comments that “The Vietnamese are attempting their own version of a Chinese Economic Miracle.”

Professors Alpert and Harmon present at the International Atlantic Economic Conference

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Professor William Alpert and Professor Oskar Harmon presented the  paper “Using Social Media in the Online Classroom”, co-authored with Joseph Histen, at the 74th International Atlantic Economic Conference in Montreal Canada, October 4-7.  The paper discusses issues related to  appropriate uses of social media in an instructional setting and presents empirical estimates of the effects of usage of social media on learning outcomes.

Sanglim Lee Update

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On August 10, 2012, Sanglim Lee defended his dissertation entitled “Expected Currency Excess Returns and Debt in the Business Cycle,” under the supervision of Professor Christian Zimmermann.

In the first chapter of his dissertation, Sanglim shows that the risk premium is an important factor in explaining deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP) in 20 developed and 18 developing countries. In the second chapter, he further examines the UIP condition with a two-country International Real Business Cycle model and shows that the business cycle risk driven by total factor productivity can account for deviations from UIP. The third chapter examines the effects of fiscal austerity on the Canadian economy using a two-sector small open economy model. The model’s simulation results indicate that the effect of fiscal austerity on the economy depends crucially on the relationship between public-debt levels and country-risk premiums.

Starting on October 8th, Sanglim works as a research fellow at the Korea Energy Economics Institute in South Korea.