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While 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.
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.
Professor Mike Shor, who among his many talents is an amateur photographer, has had one of his photos purchased for a book cover. Evelyn Waugh’s “Officers and Gentlemen” uses a photo from a three-photo series on the cover of the French translation. You can see the series the picture was taken from here.
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.
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!
Managerial 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.
Professor 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.
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.
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.
Professors 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.
