Professor Prakash’s Recent Publications

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Pprakashrofessor Nishith Prakash’s work has been featured recently in several publications.

An article that he co-authored with Marc Rockmore and Yogesh Uppal on The Economic Consequences of Accused Politicians in India has been published in the Centre for Economic Policy Research’s policy portal, Vox.

His work with co-author Sanjeev Kumar on the possible unintended consequences of an alcohol ban meant to stem violence against women has been published in several locations, including The Times of India

Blanket alcohol ban in Bihar won’t stop violence against women

and has been picked up by the Huffington Post.

Professor Ross Gives Opening Address at Dallas Federal Reserve Conference

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rossProfessor Ross gave the opening address at the Dallas Federal Reserve conference on “Intent vs. Impact: Evaluating Individual- and Community-Based Programs” on November 16th and 17th.

He summarized much of his research on race, neighborhood, and mortgage lending over the last few years. Professor Ross argued that systematic unexplained racial differences in high-cost lending and foreclosure exist and that those differences are associated with the concentration of minority borrowers and loans from low-income and minority neighborhoods at high-cost/high-risk lenders. However, Professor Ross also argued that lending to vulnerable, low-income, and minority borrowers had little to do with the severity of the foreclosure crisis itself given that the majority of foreclosure differences were explained by risk factors rather than income or neighborhood, and the dollar volume of foreclosures nationally was primarily driven by middle and upper-income borrowers living in suburban neighborhoods and a substantial amount of the research discussed is contained in Bayer, Ferreira and Ross (NBER Working Papers #19020 and #20762).

Professors Harmon and Alpert Present Papers at the Southern Economic Association Meetings

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Professors Harmon and Alpert presented two papers at the Southern Economic Association meetings in November.

Harmon presented their paper with Robert Szarka, “Using Google Apps in Economics Courses” and Alpert presented their paper “Who Takes Online Courses at Public Universities?”

Harmon and Alpert also organized two sessions and discussed papers at two sessions. As a capstone Harmon organized and Professor Harmon chaired a panel discussion entitled Labor Market Transitions in the Great Recession featuring Professor Kenneth Couch and including Dr. Robert K Triest, of the Federal Reserve of Boston.

UConn Well Represented at Southern Economic Association Meetings

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The UConn Economics Department was well represented by faculty and graduate students attending the annual Conference of the Southern Economics Association held in New Orleans at the beginning of the Thanksgiving break. Those in attendance included Jorge Agüero, Ken Couch, David Simon, William Alpert, Matt Ross, Tao Song, Ling Huang, and Oskar Harmon.

Professor Mike Shor participates in Science Salon on Climate Change

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Last Thursday, eighty Hartford-area residents met at NIXS in Hartford for cocktails and a discussion of climate change, part of UConn’s ongoing Science Salon series.

Professor Shor discussed his latest research about how people process (and ignore) scientific evidence in favor of preconceived notions. One audience member (failing to appreciate the irony) told the entire panel of scientists that he does not believe a word of what they are saying but their “so called facts” conflict with his prior view.

Background:

For the first Science Salon (including Dick Langlois): http://econ.uconn.edu/2015/06/08/professor-langlois-at-uconns-first-science-salon/

Professors Alpert and Shor Present an Early College Experience Workshop

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On October 30 Professors WiECE Workshop presented by Professors William Alpert and Mikhael Shor lliam Alpert and Mikhael Shor presented a workshop to 20 members of the Early College Experience faculty.

Early College Experience (ECE) is an opportunity for students to take UConn courses while still in high school. Every UConn ECE course is equivalent to the same course at the University of Connecticut. There are approximately fifty courses in over twenty disciplines made available to partner high schools. Courses are taught on the high school campus by high school instructors who have been certified as adjunct faculty members by the University of Connecticut.

The Economics Department now offers Connecticut High School students three introductory economics classes at almost 30 high schools throughout the state. The workshop highlighted Professor Shor introducing the teachers to current thinking about behavioral economics and included discussions of best practices of integrating the political landscape into economic study, the economics of migration and immigration, the distributions of income and wealth, and current thinking about macroeconomics and money.

During the last decade ECE has grown to over 11,000 FTE students and from 2 economics instructors to 25. Professor Alpert is the ECE Economics Department Coordinator.

JPAM, Edited by Kenneth Couch at UConn, Ranked in Economics Top 40 and Top 3 of Public Administration

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Based on Journal Citation Report data released this week, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) is ranked 31st within economics based on the two-year impact factor (2.58) and 37th based on the five-year impact factor (3.03) among 333 listed journals.

JPAM is also ranked second among 46 listed journals in the field of Public Administration using either the two or five-year impact factor. University of Connecticut Professor, Ken Couch, serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

Ken Couch of UConn visits RAND and USC

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couchKenneth Couch from UConn visited the Pardee Graduate School at RAND in Santa Monica, California in September where he made a research presentation.

While in Los Angeles, he also visited with one of his research collaborators, Julie Zissimopoulos, and a Co-Editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Elizabeth Graddy, at USC. Professor Graddy serves as Vice Provost of Academic and Faculty Affairs for USC.