Hilary Hoynes awarded grant from Russell Sage Foundation to study Food Insecurity during the Great Recession

Hilary Hoynes is part of a team of researchers awarded a $150,00 grant from the Russell Sage Foundations program on the Great Recession. Hoynes and colleagues will study food insecurity during the great recession.

Hilary Hoynes appointed member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholar's Program

Hilary Hoynes was appointed as a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Russell Sage Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research program. Tha NAC consists of 10 nationally recognized experts in social science and health policy. The Committee advises the National Program Office and the Foundation in the annual selection of Scholars and in monitoring the program’s ongoing progress. For more information see http://healthpolicyscholars.org/.

Christopher M Meissner wins Best Economic History Article

Christopher M. Meissner and co-author Michael Huberman won the Arthur H. Cole Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Economic History during the previous year. The paper is titled “Riding the Wave of Trade: Explaining the Rise of Labor Regulation in the Golden Age of Globalization”. The paper shows how globalization worked to raise rather than lower labor standards in the 19th century. The prize is awarded annually by the Economic History Association. A short accessible summary of the paper is available at the web portal Vox EU by clicking here.

UC Davis Team led by Ann Stevens and Marianne Page is Awarded Funding for a Poverty Research Center

Robert Feenstra awarded an NSF and a Sloan Foundation Grant

Robert Feenstra has been awarded two recent grants for his research: one from the National Science Foundation for $750,000 over three years (shared with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago), and a second from the Sloan Foundation for $500,000 over three years (shared with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Groningen, The Netherlands). Both these grants are to support research on the comparison of “real GDP” across countries. In this topic, he will compare the standard of living of the average citizen in one country to that in another country, and also the productive capacity of one country to another. These comparisons are difficult to make because of differences in prices and exchange rate across countries, all of which must be corrected for. This work used do be done at the University of Pennsylvania in what was called the “Penn World Table,” or PWT. That project will now be taken over by UC Davis and the University of Groningen, where it will be called pwt@ucdavis.edu and pwt@ugroningen.edu.

Robert Feenstra organizes a very prestigious conference at the Bank of England

Robert Feenstra and Alan Taylor recently organized a conference under the topic “Globalization in an Age of Crisis: Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century.” It was held at the Bank of England on September 15-16, 2011, and jointly sponsored by the Bank and the National Bureau of Economic Research with funding from the Sloan Foundation. This conference brought together academic economists and key policy makers, including former heads of state, to discuss multilateral cooperation in the three areas of monetary policy, fiscal policy, and international trade policies. The attached photo shows Robert Feenstra and Alan Taylor seated with Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, surrounded by other conference participants.

Shu Shen to join department as an Assistant Professor in Fall.

Shu Shen will join the Department of Economics in Fall as an Assistant Professor. Shu is currently completing her Ph.D. at University of Texas - Austin under the supervision of Professor Stephen Donald. Her research ins in cross-section and semiparametric econometrics. Her research papers include "Tests for Distributional Effects" and "Estimation of Censored Panel-Data Models with Slope Heterogeneity".

Gregory Clark finds more social mobility in England in mediaval times than in modern times.

Gregory Clark's novel research using the distribution of surnames finds that, surprisingly, there was actually more social mobility in England in medieval times than in modern times. This research has made its way into the press, with recent story's including "If you're named Darcy you're likely to be one of the priveleged rich" in The Guardian; "Mr.Darcy and other posh names 'more likely to be rich even today' in the U.K. newspaper Metro; and "Social mobility no easier in England's modern meritocracy than in medieval oligarchy" in the Times Higher Education supplement. A draft paper  on Gregory’s research is available at his website.

Can the Welfare State Survive in a Global Economy?

This question is discussed on Thursday, March 14, 5:30 - 7:00 pm, by Peter Lindert and Emmanuel Saez in AGR Room, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Peter Lindert is a Distinguished Research Professor for Economics at UC Davis, and Emmanuel Saez is the E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Equitable Growth, UC Berkeley.  He is also the 2009 John Bates Clark Medal recipient and an 2010 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. This Levine Family Seminar is sponsered by The Levine Family Fund, the Economics Department, and the Institute of Governmental Affairs.

James Bushnell to join Economics Department in Fall

James Bushnell, a specialist in industrial organization and in energy economics, will join the department in Fall 2011. After receiving his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley, Jim was a researcher at the University of California Energy Institute (Berkeley) and Director of Research from 1998-2009. Most recently Jim was Associate Professor (and Cargill Chair in Energy Economics) in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University. An example of Jim's academic research is a 2008 paper in the American Economics Review on “Vertical Arrangements, Market Structure and Competition: An analysis of Restructured U.S.
Electricity Markets”. Jim is a Research Associate at NBER, Associate Editor of two journals (Operations Research and Utilities Policy), and is currently a member of the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator that is charged with operating California's high-voltage wholesale power grid. His recent research has focused on economic policy to control greenhouse emissions.

Ann Stevens testifies at the California State Assembly

Oscar Jorda, Travis Berge, and Early Elias in the Wall Street Journal--Warns of High Recession Risk for U.S.

 UCD Professor Oscar Jorda, Ph.D. graduate Travis Berge (now Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) and B.A. graduate Early Elias (now Research Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) have new research discussed in the SF Fed Economic Letter.

By Michael S. Derby

The outlook is growing grimmer for the U.S. economy, as the risk of a new recession fueled by European troubles has risen, a new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argues.

In the analysis released Monday, the central bank researchers say the U.S. economy is particularly vulnerable to shocks right now. If something were to strike the nation at this time of already weak growth, contracting gross domestic product would be hard to avoid. The most obvious recession trigger is the worsening and unresolved government debt crisis currently roiling Europe, the authors note.

“The odds are greater than 50% that we will experience a recession sometime early in 2012,” the paper states.

“The message is clear,” economists Travis Berge, Early Elias and Oscar Jorda warn. “A European sovereign debt default may well sink the United States back into recession,” and “prudence suggests that the fragile state of the U.S. economy would not easily withstand turbulence coming across the Atlantic.”

See the full article at: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/11/14/san-francisco-fed-warns-of-high-recession-risk-for-u-s/

Burkhard C. Schipper awarded NSF Grant

Burkhard C. Schipper received a $188,532 grant from the National Science Foundation to study strategic manipulation of learning players in games. In many real life games like markets, public goods provision, etc. players do not know Nash equilibrium initially. Rather, they may learn to play equilibrium over time with simple boundedly rational heuristics. Yet, bounded rationality may make them prone to manipulation by more sophisticated players. Burkhard's research aims to find simple learning heuristics that can not be manipulated.

Department Undergraduate Awards announced

The 2011 Departmental Citations for Outstanding Economic Undergraduate Accomplishment have been awarded to: Kavita Anand, Christina M. Borg, GianCarlo Canaparo, Siu Lung Chow, Derek Ryan DeGroot, Sharon M. Fong, Hengzhi Gu, Chin Fung Kelvin Kan, George Li, Hecong Li, Zhuojia Lin, Lester Robert Lusher, Arata Oto, Andy Pang, Victoria Elizabeth Phillips, Y-Vu Van, George Yuguang Wen, Noah Benjamin Mote Yaffe, and Shen Zhang. Y-Vu Van additionally received the 2011 Distinguished Undergraduate Student Award. And Kavita Anand (thesis supervisor Rob Feenstra) and Victoria Elizabeth Phillips (thesis supervisor Dave Rapson) graduated with Highest Honors in Economics. Our congratulations to all these students.

Congratulations to our graduating seniors.

At the UCD Letters and Science Spring commencement ceremony 260 students will receive Bachelor of Arts degrees with majors in Economics. This brings to over 500 students graduating with a major in Economics over the past 12 months (80 graduated in Winter 2011, 100 in Fall 2010 and 90 in Summer 2010)! Our students move on to many different career paths in many different fields. Those continuing on in economics include Puneet Chehal (B.A. 2008) who is starting a Ph.D. program at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, following three years working as a Research Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Strong incoming Ph.D. class for Fall 2011

We have 19 new students who have confirmed they will commence Ph.D. studies in Fall 2011. Among the students, 9 are domestic and 10 international (one each from China, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, and 5 from Korea); 7 are women and 12 are men.  The students come from a variety of excellent universities, including Pomona, Middlebury, Bocconi, Toulouse, Peking U and Seoul National. Several have research assistant experience at research institutions including the  Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.  For the first time one of our incoming students was awarded a Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship on the basis of a university-wide competition; nine such fellowships are awarded by UCD each year and cover fees and living expenses for two years.

Alan Taylor speaker at the Institute for New Economic Thinking Conference at Bretton Woods

Alan Taylor presented his research on "The Global Financial Landscapw and Policy Responses" to the George Soros sponsored Institute for New Economic Thinking Conference at Bretton Woods. His research found the recent financial market meltdown came at a time of unusual movement of capital from emerging market countries to developed market countries (rather than the usual reverse direction). Other speakers at the conference included Gordon Brown and Larry Summers. Click here for Alan's paper and video of his presentation.

Great employment success for this year's Ph.D.'s

Congratulations to our students who will graduate with Ph.D.'s in 2011 and have obtained employment as Assistant Professors or Researchers at the following institutions.
Will Ambrosini      Amazon
Travis Berge          Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Changho Choi        Bank of Korea
Rowena Gray         Department of Economics, University of Essex
Marco Hernandez   Banco de Mexico
Jeremy Moulton     Public Policy School, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Jed Richardson       Value-Added Research Center, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Anson Soderbery    Department of Economics, Purdue University
Charles Stocker      U.S. Center for Disease Control
Greg Wright            Department of Economics, University of Essex

Economics department ranked number 6 among public U.S. universities and ranked in the top 20 among public and private U.S. universities.

The UC Davis Department of Economics was ranked as the sixth highest ranked economics department at public U.S. universities and number 18 among private and public U.S. universities in February 2011. The RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) rankings are based on research output and citations from a data set of over 1,000,000 journal articles, books and chapters. Unlike other rankings these rankings are current and are updated every month. The top 20 were in order: Harvard, Chicago, MIT, UCBerkeley, Princeton, NYU, Columbia, Stanford, Boston, Northwestern, Yale, Penn, Michigan, UCSD, UCLA, Boston College, Wisconsin, UCDavis, Maryland, and Wash U (St. Louis). Further details are given at http://cameron.econ.ucdavis.edu/Repecrankings.pdf

Ann Stevens and Hilary Hoynes meet with Congressman Mike Thompson

Ann Huff Stevens and Hilary Hoynes met with federal Congressman Mike Thompson on February 1, 2011 to discuss a number of economic topics including tax reform, unemployment and job creation.  This was the first in what Congressman Thompson hopes will become a continuing connection to and dialogue with policy experts at UC Davis.

Rob Feenstra on National Public Radio

Rob Feenstra can be heard in a National Public Radio story on how international trade flows are calculated by attributing the entire value of a product to the country in which the final product is assembled, even if components are p[roduced elsewhere. For example, the total wholesale value of the iPhone — for the 3G model it was about $180 — goes on the Chinese import side of the trade ledger. As a result, says economist Rob Feenstra of the University of California, Davis, "The U.S. trade deficit with China tends to be exaggerated." For the NPR story see http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/133029198/Tracing-The-Trade-Deficit-Back-To-The-iPhone.html Rob is Director of The Center for International Data at UC  Davis - http://cid.econ.ucdavis.edu/

Hilary Hoynes co-editor of The American Economic Review

Hilary Hoynes has begun service as one of five co-editors of The American Economic Review. The AER, along wth Econometrica, is the most prestigious acedemic economics journal. Hilary will be very busy - in 2010 the journal received 1,477 submissions (with 106 published).

Peter Lindert quoted in The Atlantic Monthly

Peter Lindert is quoted in the jan/Feb 2011 issue of The Atlantic Monthly in an article on the Rise of the new Global Elite.  "Peter Lindert is an economist at the University of California at Davis and one of the leaders of the “deep history” school of economics, a movement devoted to thinking about the world economy over the long term—that is to say, in the context of the entire sweep of human civilization. Yet he argues that the economic changes we are witnessing today are unprecedented. “Britain’s classic industrial revolution was far less impressive than what has been going on in the past 30 years,” he told me. The current productivity gains are larger, he explained, and the waves of disruptive innovation much, much faster." See http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/1/

Doug Miller and Colin Cameron research highly cited

Two papers by Colin Cameron and Doug Miller on robust statistical inference for regression with clustered errors were among the 100 most cited research items in Economics to appear in the past five years. The citation counts use data from items listed in RePec are weighted by recursive impact factors and discounted by citation age. See http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.ritem.rdiscount.html

Research by Scott Carrell featured in the Chronicle of Higher education

Research by Scott Carrell on measuring professor teaching quality by using students' grades in subsequent courses, such as Calculus II grades used to assess a Calculus I professor, was featured in the latest issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education - see http://chronicle.com/article/One-Measure-of-a-Professor-/125867/ or see http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/scarrell/#PUBS

Alan Olmstead's research featured in the New York Times.

Research by Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode was the subject of an article in the January 6 editioj of the new York Times. Their research uses historical data to show that farmers in the U.S. in the past have had to adapt their crops to changes in temperature.See http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/01/06/06greenwire-us-farmers-have-adapted-before-to-sharp-shifts-5535.html

Alan Olmstead in inaugural class of Fellows of the Cliometric Society.

Alan Olmstead was elected in the inaugural class of Fellows of the Cliometric Society. The select group of just twelve Fellows also included Nobel Laureates Robert Fogel and Douglass North.

Your Friends Are Making You Fat and Lazy

This is the simple punchline of the blog of NY Times "Economix - Explaining the Science of Everyday Life" on research on peer effects in the US Air Force Academy by UC Davis economist Scott Carrell and his coauthors. The entire working paper can be downloaded here.

The authors write in the abstract "(t)he increase in obesity over the past thirty years has led researchers to investigate the role of social networks as a contributing factor. However, several challenges make it difficult to demonstrate a causal link between friends’ physical fitness and own fitness using observational data. To overcome these problems, we exploit data from a unique setting in which individuals are randomly assigned to peer groups. We find statistically significant peer effects that are 40 to 70 percent as large as the own effect of prior fitness scores on current fitness outcomes. Evidence suggests that the effects are caused primarily by friends who were the least fit, thus supporting the provocative notion that poor physical fitness spreads on a person-to-person basis."

Information about UCD job market candidates now available

Information about our department's job market candidates is now available at

http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/recruitment_candidates.cfm

Are electric cars the technology of the future?

Professor Knittel weighs in on the NY Times' Room for Debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/10/07/will-electric-cars-finally-succeed/

Department of Economics annual newsletter now available

The Department of Economics annual newsletter is now available at

newsletter_f10.pdf

NRC Rankings place UCD Economics No.13 among public universities

The long-awaited National Research Council rankings of graduate programs were released September 28. There were two overall rankings given, based on two different weights accorded to the data collected.

On the S rankings (where weights are determined from survey of faculty as to what is important) UCD Department of Economics was No. 13 among public universities and No. 39 overall (and No.42 when allow for Harvard having three separate ranked programs and Stanford having two). A 90% confidence interval was number 29 to 44.

On the R rankings (where weights are determined from regression analysis) UCD Department of Economics was No. 18 among public universities and No. 42 overall (and No.39 when allow for Harvard having three separate ranked programs and Stanford having two). A 90% confidence interval was number 30 to 56.

In the last assessment released in 1995 we were No.39 for faculty ranking and No. 50 for graduate program ranking.

Various research papers by Scott Carrell have been cited recently in the media.

The New York Times Freakonomics blog September 9 features a recent paper by Scott Carrell (joint with Mark Hoestra and James West), “Does Drinking Impair College Performance?” that shows that for those of legal drinking age the consumption of alcohol leads to significant reductions in academic performance (roughly a 0.1 lower GPA) and that the effect is largest for the highest-perfoming student. The study exploits  data from the Air Force Academy, where laws against under-age drinking is strictly enforced, permitting comparison of those either side of age 21. See NY Times story. A September 13 article in the Los Angeles Times on “The ‘contagion’ of social networks” cites research by Scott Carrell that examined the spread of fitness habits in students at the Air Force Academy and found that the probability of a student being classified "unfit" tripled once half the student's social network fell out of shape. Carrell sees an opportunity in the results. "If you make that 'unfit' person more healthy," he says, "that suggests you will also increase the fitness levels of everyone else in the group." See LA Times story. Scottl’s research (with James West) on quality of teaching, published in the Journal of Political Economy, was cited in the September 14 Chronicle of Higher Education story on “Why Teaching is Not Priority No.1”. See Chronicle story Scott’s research papers can be found at research.

Deborah Swenson research on trade impact of multinational retailers in China noted by Wall Street Journal.

Research by Deborah Swenson, joint with Keith Head and Ran Jing, was the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal Real Time Economics blog. The research (see NBER paper) finds that expansion of U.S. retailers such as Walmart in China leads to increased exports by Chinese firms, though channels such as more stringent requirements for suppliers to Walmart increasing suppliers’ productivity. The Wall Street blog (see WSJ) notes that while this is good for China and for global economic output, an increase in consumption in China facilitated by entry of U.S. firms such as Walmart may not lead to the desired reduction in the size of the large trade deficit that the U.S. has with China.

Alan Olmstead awarded the Alice Hanson Jones Prize by the Economic History Association.

Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode (B.A. graduate from UCD now at University of Michigan) were awarded the Alice Hanson Jones Prize for their book, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development, published by Cambridge University Press in 2008. The prize, awarded by the Economic History Association, recognizes the best book published in the past two years on North American economic history. 

Former student Ivan Tchakarov appears on PBS television show Nightly Business Report

The PBS television show Nightly Business Report had an extensive interview on the economy of Rusiia with Ivan Tchakarov,  who received his PhD from the department in 2003 and is now chief economist for Russia at BofA / Merrill Lynch. See transcript and video.

Exciting Levine Family Fund speaker series for 2010-11

The Levine Family Fund, created by the Jay (B.A. Economics '84) and Tammy Levine Family Foundation, has generously endowed money to the UCD Department of Economics support lectures to promote debate and interest in Economic issues in the Davis community. Committee chair Chris Meissner has already lined up an impressive list of speakers for 2010-11: Matthew Ridley (author of “The Rational Optimist”); Hal Varian (Chief economist of Google), Emmanuel Saez (Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and winner of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal in 2009 for the best U.S. economist under 40 years old), Peter Lindert (UCD Economics Professor emeritus); and Claudia Goldin (Professor of Economics at Harvard). Events in the Levine Family series will take place in the evenings throughout 2010-11 and we welcome the general public. Stay tuned for more information.

Oscar Jorda research on probability of double dip recession widely cited in the media.

A Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter by Oscar Jorda, joint work with graduate student Travis Berge, was widely cited in the media (Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, ….) following its release August 9. The research uses an improved forecasting method to forecast that the probability of another recession by June 2012 is between 0.2 and 0.5. See paper.

Giacomo Bonanno organizes two conferences

Giacomo Bonanno is organizing two conferences:

• Ninth Conference on "Logic and the Foundations of Game and Decision Theory" (LOFT9) , University of Toulouse (France), July 5-7, 2010,    http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/bonanno/loft9.html   
   
• Conference on " Information processing, rational beliefs and social interaction"   Banff International Research Station (Canada), August 27-29, 2010,   http://www.birs.ca/birspages.php?task=displayevent&event_id=10w2133

Chris Meissner contributes to the report

Chatham House, London issued a report on March 18th, 2010 titled. "Beyond the Dollar: Rethinking the International Monetary System". The report features contributions by UCD Associate Professor Christopher M. Meissner and also DeAnne Julius (UCD, PhD) as well as other prominent academics and market particpants from around the world. Eleven chapters map out proposals for a new international monetary order and look at ways in which monetary authorities and political leaders can help prepare the ground for a new system and facilitate the transition.

Joaquim Silvestre awarded the 2009 Narcís Monturiol Medal to Scientific and Technological Medal by Government of Catalonia.

Jaoquim Silvestre was awarded the 2009 Narcís Monturiol Medal to Scientific and Technological Medal by the Catalan Government ( href="http://www.gencat.cat/diue/serveis/premis/ur/premis_narcis_monturiol/index_en.html">Narcís Monturiol Medal ). This highly selective award for contributions to universities and research is granted annually by the Ministry of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise of the government of Catalonia (population 7.5 million). Joaquim was one of thirteen recipients from all areas of science, mostly physical sciences. The medal is named after Narcís Monturiol  (1819-1885), Catalan engineer, pioneer in the design and construction of submarines. His motivation was social (to improve the working conditions of coral divers) and scientific (exploration of the ocean floor), rather than military. He built and tested two prototypes: Ictíneo (1859) and Ictíneo II (1865), the latter with a crew of 20 men to a depth of 30 meters. In1891 he published his “Essay on the art of underwater navigation.” Jaoquim is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and author of a microeconomics text in Catalan.

UC Davis economics ranked high in recent rankings.

UC Davis economics ranked high in recent rankings. The RePEc rankings in May 2010 (href="http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usa.htm">RePec rankings) place UC-Davis economics at number 6 among public U.S. universities departments of economics and number 21 among public and private U.S. universities.  The Tilburg University Top 100 Worldwide Economics Schools Research Rankings

https://econtop.uvt.nl/rankinglist.php

based on research contributions 2004-2008 placed UC-Davis Economics as number 14 among public U.S. universities, number 31 among public and private universities and number 41 worldwide.

Ann Stevens cited in Wall Street Journal

A recent Wall Street Journal article on "Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White-Collar Struggle" quotes Proessor Ann Stevens. The article begins with ...

But pay cuts, layoffs and the decadelong flatlining of the stock market mean many families can no longer help their children.This comes as young adults could use a financial helping hand more than ever. The unemployment rate for workers ages 16 to 29 was 15.2% in March, the highest rate since 1948, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics .... "It's almost a double whammy," says Ann Huff Stevens, an economics professor at the University of California at Davis. "If a parent goes through a job loss, they're going to contribute less. And there's a direct effect because kids themselves are earning less, too. A recession like this might have some lasting effects for parents and kids."http://www.marketwatch.com/story/parents-struggles-hit-adult-kids-2010-04-05

Greg Clark awarded NSF Grant.

Greg Clark received a National Science Foundation grant for 2010 – 2012 of $132,000 to support his research on "Were There Ever Persistent Social Classes? Economic and Social Mobility, 1250-2009."

Chris Knittel in Wall street Journal and NPR Morning Edition

Chris Knittel was quoted in a January 12 Wall Street Journal article on the recommendation of the California Economic and Allocation Advisory Committee panel (of which Chris is a member) to return greenhouse-gas emissions to consumers via tax cuts or dividend checks. And on January 19 Chris’s voice could be heard on NPR’s Morning Edition explaining externalities: “If we worry about climate change, if we worry about even more local pollution such as smog, if we worry about the fact that our military is larger, the more oil we consume, all of those costs are not in that $3 a gallon. So, from that perspective, $3 a gallon is actually a pretty good deal.”

New Republic blog cites Marianne Page and Scott Carrell as one of the Year’s Biggest Ideas in Economics.providing

The New Republic magazine blog by Zubin Jelveh (The Stash) cited research by Marianne Page and Scott Carrell as one of the Year’s Biggest Ideas in Economics. “Another set of papers sheds further light on the gender gap in achievement in the hard sciences. Roland Fryer and Levitt show that "girls do not lag boys in math in countries with same-sex schooling." Scott Carrell, Marianne Page, and James West show that a professor's gender has a "powerful effect" on the achievement of women."

Peter Lindert has won two awards for his book

The Social Science History Association awarded Peter the 2005 Allan Sharlin Award, for the best book in social science history published in 2004. The Economic History Association has made the same book a co-winner of the Gyorgy Ranki Prize for the best book in European economic history published in 2003-2004.

Martine Quinzii gives the Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures 2009

Professor Martine Quinzii will deliver this year's Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures at Lund University, Sweden, September 23-26, 2009. The lectures jointly held with Michael Magill are on "Uncertainty and Expectations in General Equilibrium". Further information can be found at the website of the Arne Ryde Foundation.

Christopher Knittel and Victor Stango: Tiger Woods Scandals reduces value of companies whose products he endorsed.

Research by Chris Knittel (Economics) and Victor Stango (GSM) shows that the Tiger Woods scandal had an appreciable negative effect on the stock market value of companies whose products he endorsed. This research has received much media attention - over 2000 entries in Google News. See summary and research paper.

Giovanni Peri research on immigrant labor cited in The Economist.

A feature article on Immigration to America ("A Ponzi scheme that works") in the December 17 edition of The Economist includes the following quote regarding the positive effect of immigrants: "Gianmarco Ottaviano of the University of Bologna and Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis, find that nearly 90% of native-born American workers actually enjoy higher wages because of immigration."

Latest annual department newsletter issued

The latest annual department newsletter covering academic year 2008-09 and the early part of Fall 2009 was issued in November 2009; see Newsletter. Earlier years' newsletters are available at Past newsletters.

Research of eight faculty members presented at the 2010 ASSA Meetings

The 2010 ASSA Meetings held Jan 2-5 in Atlanta will include research papers by Chris Knittel ("Low Carbon Fuel Standards and Carbon Caps with Capacity Constraints: Running Out of Gas?"), Alan Olmstead ("Adjusting to Climatic Variation: Historical Perspectives from North American Agricultural Development"), Giovanni Peri ("The Labor Market Impact of Immigration in Western Germany in the 1990's"), Kadee Russ ("Hymer's Multinationals: Strategic Pricing and Cross-Border Takeovers" and "FDI in the Banking Sector"), Kevin Salyer ("Agency Costs, Housing Production and Business Cycles"), Ina Simonovska ("The Elasticity of Trade: Estimates and Evidence"), Deborah Swenson ("From Beijing to Bentonville: Do Multinational Retailers Link Markets?") and Alan Taylor ("The Price of Capital Redux"). These meetings are the main meetings of the Economics profession.

Oscar Jorda and Alan Taylor: The carry trade can be profitable (The Economist)

Research by Oscar Jorda and Alan Taylor is the featured research in the Economics Focus section of the December 10 issue of the Economist Magazine; see Economist article. The original research paper on “The Carry Trade and Fundamentals: Nothing to Fear But FEER Itself” suggests a way to make a steady profit in the carry trade where investors borrow low-yielding currencies and lend (invest in) high-yielding currencies. This trade is big - around $1 trillion was estimated to be in the yen carry trade in 2007.

Former student Ivan Tchakarov quoted in New York Times

Ivan Tchakarov received his PhD from the department in 2003, worked at the IMF until 2008, and is now chief economist for Russia and the former Soviet states at Nomura Bank. He is quoted in a November 30 NY Times story on the financial exposure of Baltic and neighboring states; see story.

Economics Department sponsors Joel Hay / Thomas Rice health care reform debate

The Department of Economics co-sponsored a two-hour debate on health care reform on November 17. The two speakers were prominent health economists Joel Hay (Professor and Founding Chair in the Department of Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy in the School of Pharmacy, and Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Southern California) and Thomas Rice (Professor in the Department of Health Services, and Vice Chancellor of Academic Personnel at UCLA). Both speakers agreed that the reforms did little to contain costs and favored expansion of health insurance coverage. Professor Rice argued that the U.S. had poor health outcomes (life expectancy and infant mortality), especially given the large amount of money spent per capita in the U.S. compared to other countries. He favored reducing costs through reductions on the supply side, such as giving Medicare the power to negotiate harder on prices. Professor Hay felt that the poor health outcomes reflect other factors than quality of care, such as higher murder and accident rates, and that health care costs in other countries are low in part because they free ride on medical innovations such as new drugs that mainly occur in the U.S. He favored reducing costs through reductions on the demand side, most notably by having consumers be more responsible for paying for their own health costs by having high deductible health insurance (or catastrophic health insurance) plans and eliminating the exclusion of employer provided health insurance from being part of taxable income. The debate was co-sponsored by the Levine Family Fund, The Herbert A. Young Society, The Center for History, Society and Culture, the Program in Economy, Justice and Society, and the Institute of Governmental Affairs.

Oscar Jorda and Travis Berge: Economics recovery began in July 2009

Research by Oscar Jorda (Professor) and Travis Berge (graduate student) in the Department of Economics finds that economic recovery in the U.S. began in July 2009. This is part of a larger research project evaluating the official dating of business cycles by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The official NBER dating is done with a long lag – if indeed the NBER finds that the recession ended in July 2009 it will not officially determine that fact and announce it until well into 2010. The research by Jorda and Berge proposes a faster method for dating the business cycle turning points. A summary of the research is given on James Hamilton’s popular blog ; see Econbrowser. The paper is available at paper.

Ann Stevens, Marianne Page, Jessamyn Schaller: Parent job loss impacts children (New York Times)

A front-page story in the November 11 New York Times (see article) references research by Ann Stevens and Jessamyn Schaller (a graduate student in the department): "A recent study at the University of California, Davis, found that children in families where the head of the household had lost a job were 15 percent more likely to repeat a grade."
It then cites research by Ann Stevens, Marianne Page and Philip Oreopoulos (Toronto): "In the long term, children whose parents were laid off have been found to have lower annual earnings as adults than those whose parents remained employed, a phenomenon Peter R. Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, mentioned in a speech last week at New York University."

Christopher Knittel: Cash for Clunkers expensive way to reduce C02 emissions (New York Times, Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Knittel finds that the recent federal "Cash for Clunkers" program reduces CO2 emissions by an expensive $237-$365 per ton. His August 2009 research appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times

Ann Stevens: Income Loss Persists Long After Layoffs (New York Times)

Ann Stevens was quoted in an August 2009 New York Times article on the persistence of income loss after layoff.

Workshop on Neuroeconomics and Endocrinological Economics

The Department of Economics will host the Workshop on Neuroeconomics and Endocrinological Economics, November 20 - 21, 2009. Neuroeconomics studies brain functions involved in individual and strategic decisions such as decisions under risk and uncertainty, competition and cooperation. Endocrinological Economics studies how hormones interact with individual and strategic decisions. Both interdisciplinary fields are at the frontier of today’s research in economics and neuroscience. The workshop brings together innovative researchers active in economics, neuroscience, endocrinology, genetics, anthropology and psychology to exchange novel results. It is organized by Burkhard C. Schipper, assistant professor of economics at UC Davis. Sponsors include the Levine Family Foundation, the College of Letters and Science and the Institute of Governmental Affairs. Further information is available from the workshop website.

Department schedules over 40 seminars for Fall Quarter

The Department of Economics seminar series in Fall comprises over forty seminars - see Seminar schedule. Speakers include David Card, recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal and the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. Additionally the UCD Institute of Governmental Affairs sponsors several economics-related seminars, including a Fall series on Meltdown: Institutional Changes Facing California; see IGA Events schedule.

UC Davis hosts NBER-NSF Time Series Conference

UC Davis hosts the Time Series Conference sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the National Science Foundation, September 11 - 12, 2009. UC Davis Economics professors Oscar Jorda and Guido Kuersteiner serve both on the program committee and the organizing committee. This conference ranks as the premier international meeting on the statistical analysis of time series data and attracts leading researchers from around the world. It has been held annually since the late 1970s at universities in the United States, Asia and Europe, including once at UC Davis in 1984. This year marks the 25th anniversary of that meeting, during which Robert Engle and Clive Granger and James Stock presented their seminal research on cointegration. Granger was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize for his work on this topic. More information on the conference including the program can be found at the conference website.

Wing Woo receives Malaysian knighthood

Wing Woo was knighted on July 11 2009 by the Governor of Penang state (Malaysia). He received the chivalry order of Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri, DSPN (translated as Order of the Defender of State - Knight Commander) and can be referred to as "Dato" (the analog of "Sir" in England). The award was for academic achievements, professional leadership, and public service contributions.

Scott Carrell and Marianne Page: Want more women to study science? Hire more female professors!

Research by Scott Carrell (UCD), Marianne Page (UCD) and James West (Air Force Academy) finds that replacing a male instructor with a female one has such a strong effect on female achievement as to erase the gender gap in science entirely. Their research paper, is discussed in a recent article in Slate, and is the lead story in the September 2009 NBER digest.

Alan Olmstead wins the Wayne D. Rasmussen Prize of the Agricultural History Association

In June, Distinguished Professor Alan Olmstead and coauthor Paul Rhode won the Wayne D. Rasmussen Prize of the Agricultural History Association for their article “Biological Innovation and Productivity Growth in the Antebellum Cotton Economy,” which appeared in the December 2008 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

Alan Olmstead wins the Quality of Research Discovery Award of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Distinguished Professor Alan Olmstead and coauthor Paul Rhode won the Quality of Research Discovery Award of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. The association's 2009 prize has been awarded in recognition of their recent book "Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development".

Burkhard C. Schipper selected to be a UC Davis Hellman Fellow

Assistant Professor of Economics, Burkhard C. Schipper, has been selected to be a 2009-2010 UC Davis Hellman Fellow. He will receive an award towards his research activities on hormones and economic behavior. He is the first member of the Economics Department to receive the fellowship. The Hellman Family Foundation has contributed funds to establish the UC Davis Hellman Fellows Program to provide support and encouragement for the research of promising faculty at the Assistant Professor rank who exhibit potential for great distinction in their research.

Robert Feenstra delivers the Ohlin Lecture

On September 17-18, Robert Feenstra delivered this year’s Ohlin Lecture at the Stockholm School of Economics. The annual lecture is named in honor of Bertil Ohlin, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1977 together with the British economist James Meade "for their pathbreaking contribution to the theory of international trade and international capital movements". The Ohlin Lectures are devoted to important economic problems in areas close to Ohlin’s heart and are subsequently published in book form by the MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, in a series that has gained a wide readership. Distinguished economists working on international economics and trade such as Jagdish Bhagwati, Paul Krugman, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Robert A. Mundell, Elhanan Helpman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Kenneth Rogoff among others delivered previous years’ lectures. Professor Feenstra holds the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair at the Economics Department, UC Davis. He is part of an active research group on international economics and trade that includes Professors Paul Bergin, Katheryn Russ, Deborah Swenson, Alan Taylor, Wing Woo and many doctoral students.

Professor Alan M. Taylor awarded the Houblon-Norman/George Fellowship of the Bank of England

Professor Alan M. Taylor has been awarded the Houblon-Norman/George Fellowship of the Bank of England in 2009-2010. The fellowships are awarded "to promote research into and disseminate knowledge and understanding of the working, interaction and function of financial business institutions in Great Britain and elsewhere and the economic conditions affecting them". Fellows engage in full-time research on an economic or financial topic of their own choice, preferably one that could be studied with particular advantage at the Bank of England. Former recipients of the fellowship include Thomas Sargent, Robert Barro, UC Davis economist Chris Meissner, and UC Davis economics undergraduate alumnus and professor of economics at the University of Chicago, Anil Kashyap.

First issue of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy now available

the first issue of the new American Economic Journal: Economic Policy has now been released. Hilary Hoynes is the co-editor of that journal.
http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=1

Hilary Hoynes is program chair of fall meeting of National Tax Association

Hilary Hoynes is Program Chair, National Tax Association Annual Conference, Denver, November 2009. Jim Poterba is the NTA president this year.

'Kudunomics' and more

Samuel Bowles is scheduled to visit UC Davis next week to talk about “kudunomics” and the nature of wealth. Bowles is a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program, and an economics professor at the University of Siena. In a long career, he also has taught at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His work spans economics, sociology and anthropology.

The UC Davis Institute of Governmental Affairs announced that Bowles will present two lectures on March 5, both free and open to the public:

• Kudunomics — The Information Economy Meets the Invisible Hand, 1 p.m., 360 Shields Library. For much of human history, according to Bowles, people shared their resources (such as the African antelope kudu) owing to the fact that individual ownership was difficult. With the emergence of agriculture came individual property rights in land, domesticated animals, goods and more.

Today grain and steel are being displaced by the economy of ideas and information — “goods” that cannot be weighed, measured or fenced.

“Good ideas are indeed like the large game that once formed a major part of our subsistence,” said Bowles, who will discuss the economic implications of this transformation.

• The Nature of Wealth and the Dynamics of Inequality in the Long Run. Economy, Justice and Society Seminar Series. 3:30 p.m., International House, 10 College Park, Davis.

'Stimulus Smackdown'

Two professors are scheduled to square off March 4 in a free, public forum: Stimulus Smackdown — Can Deficit Spending Save the Economy? The contenders: J. Bradford DeLong of UC Berkeley, a proponent of the federal government’s economic stimulus package, on his blog, Grasping Reality with Both Hands (delong.typepad.com), and in other media. Michele Boldrin of Washington University, St. Louis, one of the signatories of a full-page ad that appeared recently in The New York Times and elsewhere, opposing government spending as a tool to improve economic performance.

The forum is set for 6 p.m. in the University Club Lounge, with Gregory Clark, chair of the Department of Economics, as moderator, and questions from a panel of UC Davis economists, and from the audience.

UC Davis Economist Wing Thye Woo gives Testimony at the US Congress

UC Davis economist Professor Wing Thye Woo gave a testimony on China to the US Congress on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. He briefed the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that examines China’s role in the global recession and its impact on U.S. relations. Watch his testimony.

UC Davis Economist Receives Grant to Study International Integration since 1870

UC Davis Economist Christopher Meissner along with Dennis Novy (Warwick University, UK) and David Jacks (Simon Fraser Canada and Davis PhD) were awarded a grant for $167,000 from the United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council. The grant is to explore international trade integration with new methods and new data extending back to 1870 and covering two large trade booms and one large trade bust. The grant will run two years culminating with a conference on integration in Venice, Italy in June 2010.

Fall 2008 Department Newsletter Available

The Department Newsletter for Fall 2008 is available now for download (PDF file).

David Rapson has been awarded a grant from the STC

David Rapson has been awarded a Faculty Research Grant from the Sustainable Transportation Center at UC Davis for his project "Consumer expectations and the evolution of the U.S. vehicle fleet: Re-examining the CAFE standards".

Scott Carrell Awarded European Association of Labour Economists Prize

Scott Carrell has been awarded the European Association of Labour Economist Prize for the best paper published in Labour Economics in 2006 through 2007 for his study, "The National Labor Market Encounters the Local Labor Market: Effects on Employee Retention". He was presented the award this September in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the EALE's annual conference dinner.

Chris Knittel awarded the Chancellor's Fellowship

Chris Knittel is one of the recipients of this year’s Chancellor’s Fellowships. The Chancellor's Fellow program was established in 2000 to honor the achievements of extraordinary UC Davis faculty early in their careers. Winners are chosen based on demonstrated excellence in academic pursuits as evidenced by especially high achievement in the quality and significance of their research and teaching, and on the potential they have for future achievements. Five faculty members were chosen in 2008. Chris research focuses on industrial organization and energy economics.

Cleaning Up the Mess on Wall-Street

While most economists are scratching their heads about the recent meltdown on Wall-Street, an UC Davis economics undergrad alum shows possible ways out of it. Anil Kashyap, who graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in economics in 1982, and who is the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, published together with his colleague Jeremy Stein an op-ed in The New York Times on September 23. This op-ed, titled “The $700 Billion Question”, outlines four possible functions of the new Treasury agency that will oversee the $700 billion bailout. Read the original article at http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/anil.kashyap/research/nyt09-23$700billionquestion.pdf . Back in 1982, Anil won the Wall Street Journal Award, awarded to top graduating students of economics at UC Davis. During his time in Davis, he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Alan Olmstead awarded the Clio Can

Alan Olmstead has been awarded the prestigious Clio Can at the Sixth World Congress of Cliometrics. The Can is a lifetime achievement award given in recognition of research, service, and leadership in Cliometrics -- the theory and practice of quantitative economic history. The past holder, Richard Steckel of Ohio State University, presented the award to Alan Olmstead at the congress in Dalkeith Palace, near Edinburgh, Scotland.

At the same conference, Sun Go, a doctoral student of economic history at UC Davis, received the "Benjamin Franklin Award" for his unique and engaging presentation style.

The Department of Economics at UC Davis ranks among the world's top departments in economic history. The active research group comprises Greg Clark, Peter Lindert, Chris Meissner, Alan Olmstead, John Parman, Alan Taylor, and many doctoral students, who run a weekly research seminar with speakers on economic history from all around the world.

Giacomo Bonanno obtains funding for conference

Giacomo Bonanno obtains funding to organize a 5-day interdisciplinary conference on "Information processing, rational belief change and social interaction" in Dagstuhl (Germany), August 2009 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=2009351)

Scott Carrell selected as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow

Scott Carrell has been awarded a $55,000 grant from the NAED and Spencer foundation for his project "Raising College Students' Grades: A Controlled Experiment in Peer Effects."

Knittel awarded NSF grant for $250,000

Professor Knittel has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (along with Victor Stango of Dartmouth) studying: "Information Technology, Outsourcing, Productivity and Industry Dynamics in a Service Industry." Roughly one half of the grant will be devoted to graduate student funding administered through the Institute of Governmental Affairs.

Knittel awarded the Barry D. McNutt Award for Excellence in Automotive Policy Analysis

Professor Knittel was awarded the 2008 Barry D. McNutt Award for Excellence in Automotive Policy Analysis, along with Jon Hughes and Dan Sperling, for their work on gasoline demand behavior.

Scott Carrell has been awarded a grant from the IES

Scott Carrell has been awarded a $918,000 grant from the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences for his project "Getting Qualified High School Seniors to Enroll in College: An Experimental Study in Vermont."

Tim Cogley was appointed co-editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control

Tim Cogley was appointed co-editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.

Robert C. Feenstra received the Cameron C. Bryan Distinguished Chair.

Robert C. Feenstra received the Cameron C. Bryan Distinguished Chair. The new endowed chair will support Feenstra's work in
international economics.

Hilary Hoynes was appointed a co-editor at the AEJ Policy

Hilary W. Hoynes was appointed as a Co-Editor of the new AEA journal, the American Economic Journals: Economic Policy.

Alan Olmstead is president of the EHA

Alan Olmstead has been appointed the President of the Economic History Association.

Hoynes, Page and Stevens receive USDA grant

Hilary Hoynes, Marianne Page, and Ann Stevens received a two-year grant from the US Department of Agriculture to study the impact of food and nutrition programs on short and long run economic outcomes.

Peter Lindert receives NSF grant

Peter Lindert received a National Science Foundation grant for “Global Prices and Incomes, 1200-1950 – Second Stage.”

Ann Stevens receives SSA grant

Ann Stevens received a grant from the Social Security Administration for “Retirement Wealth Across Cohorts: The Role of Earnings Inequality and Pension Changes.”

Karin Mayr visiting department until August 2008

Karin Mayr will be visiting our department from Austria through August 2008. Dr. Mayr received her Ph.D. in Economics from Johannes Kepler University of Linz where she is an Assistant Professor. Her fields of interest are International Migration, Public Economics and Political Economy.

Rowena Gray received Humanities Graduate Student award

Graduate student Rowena Gray was awarded the 2007-08 UCD & Humanities Graduate Research Award in Economics by the Graduate Council subcommittee on Support and Welfare at UCDavis. The award is a monetary allowance to help further her research. Rowena will use this award for her research studies in the areas of history and economic growth.

Peter Huckfeldt receives CPAC grant

Graduate student Peter Huckfeldt received a grant from the UCOP California Program on Access to Care for the project "Impacts of Recent Public Prenatal Health Insurance Eligibility Expansion."

Greg Clark - A Farewell to Alms

Greg Clark's book, "A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World" is published; read this UC Davis article for more details.

Peter Lindert

Peter Lindert was awarded the Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History.

Giovanni Peri has been awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation

Giovanni Peri has been awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for his project "Rethinking the Gains from Immigration." Giovanni will use the two year grant to study the impact of immigration on host countries and its policy implications.

Rob Feenstra has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation

The grant has been made towards his research project on "Integrating Expenditure and Production Estimates in International Comparisons," and will be used to develop a method of bridging expenditure and production estimates that are used in international comparisons of economic performance. The grant is joint with the University of Pennsylvania and NBER, and will also involve the University of Groningen.

Burkhard C. Schipper has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation

The grant has been made towards his research project on "Games with Unawareness - Theory and Applications." Decision makers in complex situations such as in business, politics or sciences are not aware of all relevant facts when making decisions. They face not just uncertainty about which facts to obtain but may be also unable to conceive of all relevant facts. The project is aimed to develop tools to analyze decision making under unawareness in strategic situations and to apply those tools to economics.

The department is pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty members: Scott Carrell and Christopher Meissner

We look forward to Scott and Chris joining us in the fall of 2007.

Giacomo Bonanno is organizing a summer conference

Giacomo Bonanno is co-organizing a week-long conference on "Formal Models of Belief Change in Rational Agents" to take place in Germany during the summer of 2007. The web page for the conference is http://www.dagstuhl.de/de/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=07351

Giacomo Bonanno is named editor of Economics and Philosophy

Giacomo Bonanno was named editor of Economics and Philosophy in October 2005.

Economics, Justice and Society spring conference

The Economics, Justice and Society program will hold its spring conference at the UCD campus on May 17-18. This year's conference theme will be "Gender over the life-cycle." More details will be available in coming months.

Peter Lindert has been awarded the Allan Sharlin prize

The prize is for the best book in social science history in 2004, and is awarded by the Social Science History Association. Peter was given this award for his book "Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the 18th Century"

Peter Lindert has been awarded the Gyorgy Ranki prize

The prize is awarded by the the Economic History Association, and was given for the best book in European Economic History in 2003/2004. Peter was given the prize for his book "Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the 18th Century" The prize is shared with Robert C. Allen's book "Farm to Factory."

Rob Feenstra has been awarded the Bernhard Harms prize

The prize, which is awarded every two years by the Kiel Institute, honors scholars with a distinguished career in the field of international economics. It includes a cash award of 25,000 Euro. In presenting the award to Professor Feenstra, theh president of the Kiel Institute remarked that "Robert Feenstra has contributed to the progress of international economics in many ways: he contributed to the theory, he developed new empirical methods, he created a superb database for international trade, he published important empirical studies with high relevance for economic policy, he set a new standard in teaching international trade at an advanced level and he supported other researchers in the field through organizing first-class networks and review processes."

ASSA Meetings in Chicago, IL

The Department of Economics, UC Davis, will be hosting a special function at the ASSA Meetings next January in Chicago, IL. Please join us! Information is as follows:

Location: Hyatt Regency Chicago
Room: Horner
Date: January 5, 2007
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Giacomo Bonanno

Giacomo Bonanno has been named editor of the journal "Economics and Philosophy."

Sam Allen to receive Heinz Dissertation Award

Samuel Allen, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California-Davis, has recently been selected as the winner of the John Heinz Dissertation Award for the best dissertation written in the social insurance field completed between January 1, 2004 and August 1, 2005.

The John Heinz Dissertation Award is awarded annually by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to furthering knowledge and understanding of social insurance, health care financing, and related issues through research and education.

Seminar e-mail list available

If you are interested in receiving email reminders about Economics department seminars. Please go to http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/listproc/signup.cfm and sign up.

Robert Feenstra will be awarded the Bernhard Harms Prize of the Kiel Institute for World Economics for 2006.

The Prize, which is named after the founder of the Kiel Institute, is awarded every two years to outstanding economists in the field of international economic research, and is endowed with an amount of 25,000 €. In 2004 the Prize was awarded to Professor Maurice Obstfeld from the University of California at Berkeley. Other previous prize winners includes Stanley Fischer, Jeffrey Sachs, Elhanan Helpman, Assar Lindbeck, Martin Feldstein, Rudiger Dornbusch, Anne O. Krueger, and Jagdish Bhagwati.
The award ceremony will take place at the Kiel Institute and will be combined with a four-day research and teaching stay at the Institute, in September 2006.

The winter undergraduate newsletter in now available

The undergraduate newsletter is available at http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/undergradNewsPage.pdf

Recruitment for 2004/2005

The Department has three openings. The tenure-track Assistant Professor level is open for all three positions; no more than two of these will be filled at The Associate Professor level or above; and no more than one of these will be filled at the Professor level. One position is in Microeconomics. The ideal candidate for this position will be adept with the tools of theoritical economics and be a potential collaborator with theorists and possibly applied microeconomists. One position is in Econometrics. Candidates may work primarily in cross-sectional or time-series econometrics, but ideally will both contribute to research in pure econometrics and serve as a resource to applied economists and econometricians. The third position is in Industrial Organization, including both theoretical and empirical applications. Candidates must be conducting research in an aspect of one of these fields and be qualified to teach at the undergraduate and graduate level. Applicants should have Ph.D. or equivalent in economics. Persons with Ph.D. pending will be considered only if there is a high probability of completion of all degree requirements by July 2004. Applicants for a senior position must have outstanding publication records. Positions are contingent on funding. All positions are open until filled. Applications from junior candidates, however, must be received by December 1, 2004 to be assured of consideration in the first round. Applications will only be accepted on line at http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/recruitment. Also send 3 letters of recommendation (junior candidates) or names of references (senior candidates) in hardcopy to the department. The University of California is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Job Market Candidates are Now Available Online

The 2004/2005 job market candidates can be viewed online at www.econ.ucdavis.edu/jobs/