Professor Prakash invited to join new India Policy Portal

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International Growth Centre
Professor Nishith Prakash was recently invited to join a newly formed online economics and policy portal for India, funded by the International Growth Centre (IGC). The portal will potentially become the go-to source for ideas and evidence on policy issues in India.  The portal’s goal is to be an ideologically neutral portal for researchers to discuss policies and ideas with a wide audience, and to encourage debate and analysis based on rigorous evidence.

Professor Prakash’s expertise and research in the Indian economy made him a sought after addition to the group. His “Cycling to School” project, which focuses on school attendance in rural India, is also funded by the IGC.

Cambridge University Press to publish book on economic and social human rights edited by Lanse Minkler

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The volume entitled, The State of Economic and Social Human Rights: A Global Overview, edited by Lanse Minkler, has been accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press and will be available in December 2012.  It offers original scholarship on economic and social human rights from leading and new cutting-edge scholars in the fields of economics (including Susan Randolph from our department), law, political science, sociology and anthropology. It analyzes the core economic and social rights, the crucial topic of non-discrimination, and includes an innovative section on “meta” rights. The main chapters answer important questions about economic and social rights performance around the world by emphasizing the obstacles that prevent governments from fulfilling their obligations.  Novel topics include: discrimination of the stateless, Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and new data on the widespread legalization of social security and environmental rights. The book¹s introductory and concluding chapters address conceptual issues, and correct mistakes often made by critics of economic and social rights.

Recent UConn Visitor accepts Position at Top 10 Chinese Research Institution

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Xiaofang Dong, who visited our department for a year and a half to work with Professor Stephen Ross on agglomeration economies, recently accepted a faculty position at Xiamen University in China.  Xiamen University was ranked 6th this year among research institutions in China.  Xiaofang recently completed her dissertation on Entreprenuership, Firm life cycle and Agglomeration Economics at the Southwest University of Finance and Economics, China.

Oxford University Press publishes book edited by Professor Couch

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Oxford University Press has published a book entitled, Counting the Poor:  New Thinking about European Poverty Measures and Lessons for the United States, co-edited by Professor Douglas Besharov at the University of Maryland and Professor Kenneth Couch at the University of Connecticut.  The book is a collection of papers by leading scholars on current European measures of poverty, their conceptual underpinnings, and how they contrast with poverty measurement in the United States.  The papers were originally presented at a conference held at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris co-organized by Besharov and Couch.

Ph.D. candidate Leshui He presents at two conferences

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On April 11, Economics Ph.D. candidate Leshui He presented a paper at the Universitas 21 Doctoral Conference organized in Hartford by the UConn School of Business. UConn recently joined Universitas 21, which is a consortium of top universities in 13 countries. The doctoral conference brought to UConn graduate students and faculty from many member universities, providing Ph.D. students with comments on their work and an opportunity to meet and network with their counterparts from around the world. Leshui’s dissertation advisor, Professor Richard Langlois, who is a member of UConn’s Study Abroad Advisory Committee, served as discussant for a number of papers at the conference.

A few days later, on April 14, Leshui presented the same paper — titled “Subeconomy Meets Property Rights: A Theory of the Firm” — at the annual doctoral colloquium of the Consortium for Competitiveness and Cooperation (CCC), held this year at the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland.

Professor Prakash Featured on UConn Today

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Professor Prakash’s “Cycling to School” project is featured on UConn Today. Professor Prakash’s project centers around providing bicycles to girls in rural India, in an effort to increase school attendance. The project is funded by the International Growth Centre .

Click here to read more.

Grad Students and Grad Alumni: Don’t Forget to Join LinkedIn

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The Economics Department hosts two groups on LinkedIn for our graduate programs. Current PhD and MA students, as well as those who have received either degree, are encouraged and invited to join the appropriate group. Long after your direct connection to the university has gone, you will be able to contact old classmates, utilize networking opportunities, and receive updates on the department. These groups will also be our main source of contact information for those on the job market.

To join LinkedIn, please click here.

Credibility and the International Monetary Regime

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Professor Paul Hallwood has four chapters in the above titled book just published by Cambridge University Press in England.  The chapters are “Crash! Expectational Aspects of the Departures of the United Kingdom and United States from the Inter-War Gold Standard”;  “Realignment Expectations and the US Dollar, 1890–1897: Was There a ‘Peso’ Problem?”; “Credibility and Fundamentals: Were the Classical and Inter-War Gold Standards Well-Behaved Target Zones?”; and “Did Impending War in Europe Help Destroy the Gold Bloc in 1936? An Internal Inconsistency Hypothesis?”  All four chapters were written with Ronald MacDonald and Ian Marsh, and the book is edited by Michael D. Bordo and Ronald MacDonald.

 Hallwood’s chapters demonstrate that adherence to a fixed exchange regime imposes severe monetary and fiscal discipline on member countries – not unlike the Euro-zone today; that at some point this discipline can become unbearable, though the USA did ride out the free-silver movement in the 1890s; that the gold standard was heavily implicated in the generation of the Great Depression: and that it was also implicated in the French defeat by Germany in 1940 as France for too long accepted the fiscal constraint of gold, restraining its military spending, even while Germany remilitarized.

Professor Harmon Speaks on Instructional Uses of Social Media

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Professor Oskar Harmon recently presented on the topic “Using Facebook as a Discussion Board in an Online Class” at the 2nd Annual Online Learning Conference, at Post University, Waterbury CT, April 20, 2012. The theme of this year’s conference was “Driving Innovation in Online Higher Education.” Prof. Harmon organized a panel of instructors teaching online courses at Uconn. The session was titled “Innovative Active Learning Instructional Activities.” The other panel participants were Dan Mercier, Director of the Institute of Teaching and Learning, Andy DePalma, Professor of Continuing Studies, and Roger Travis, Professor of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

Professor Couch Presents Research at Yale and University of Michigan

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Professor Ken Couch recently made presentations at the Yale School of Public Health and the University of Michigan’s Retirement Research Consortium meeting.  Both presentations discussed the impacts of common life occurrences on economic well-being and long-run health outcomes.  This line of research has been supported by research funding from the Social Security Administration and is the topic of a book currently under submission by Couch and his collaborators to Stanford University Press.