BGSU CBA Economics Alumni Newsletter

ECON

ALUMNI NEWSLETTER

December 2010

Department of Economics | College of Business Administration | Bowling Green State University | Bowling Green, OH

From the Chair

well happen that state support could slip to 10% over the next two years. Needless to say, the budget situation is troubling, and worrisome.

First, my best wishes for the holiday season and the New Year! Much has been going on at Bowling Green.

Dr. John Hoag

There are several matters that are external to the department that have gained some of our attention.

First, the President of the University, Carol Cartwright, is retiring at the end of the year. A search for her replacement is in progress, and the timetable suggests that we should have a new President selected sometime in April or May. While this change does not immediately impact the department, it does signify change in the administration. A second change is that the faculty voted strongly to become unionized. The agent will be AAUP. This will have some impacts, but at this time, it is not clear what those impacts will be. It is, I think, unlikely that we will have a contract before sometime in 2012 or 2013. My guess is that the heavy bargaining will not start until the new President is in place. There is a proposal to change the General Education requirements at BGSU. While the plan is in flux, there are likely to be some substantial changes, which could affect economics as we teach a substantial number of students because of the general education requirements. Most of these changes are not matters we can have much impact on, but they do alter at least to some extent the environment at the University. The final important fact is that the State of Ohio budget was balanced last year on the back of one-time money provided by the US government.

Because the state revenues still have not recovered, and are not likely to for some time, and because there won’t be more money for the state from the federal government, it is likely that higher education in Ohio will be badly hit. We do not know the magnitude of the cuts that are coming, but the size is likely to be substantial. At this point, the state of Ohio provides about 30% of our revenue, and it may

In This Issue BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor Named Dr. Fuerst speaks at a FED conference A Conversation with Bill Easterly Report from the Economics Club Faculty Association Wins Right to Bargain Collectively

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Internally, we are moving along as well as can be expected. First, Economics has gained two faculty, faculty who were formerly with Legal Studies. We are delighted to have Sue Mota and Nancy Kubasek with us. Sue has been active in administration as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, and Nancy has been President of the Legal Studies Society as well as the author of several law texts. Sue is also a BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor. We hired a new instructor this year, Adam Lucchesi, who has an MA in Financial Economics from Ohio University and also some experience teaching at OU. We are delighted to have him with us. Our colloquium series has been active with several speakers this fall including Bill Easterly who is an alumni of BG. Awards have gone to several faculty this year. Dr. Benedict was appointed BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor. This is a lifetime award, and is very prestigious. We have had two others with this rank prior to Mary Ellen and Sue Mota, Neil Browne and Paul Haas. The department has a rich tradition of excellent teaching, and we are delighted for this added recognition. Mary Ellen richly deserves it. In addition, several of our students won awards this year which we will touch on later in the newsletter.

We continue to do the undergraduate research contest and conference. We will have an expanded format this spring with a special section for MA level students.

Times are tough in higher education, and we have been very pleased with the support you have provided to the department in these difficult times.

We would, of course, continue to welcome whatever support you can provide. But most of all, we want to hear from you and to hear what you are doing.

Discussion on Cap and Trade Alumni Update The Economic Department’s 2009-10 Stars Colloquium Series for 2010 Successful graduates move on to further their education in Economics

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Mary Ellen Benedict Named BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor This past year, Dr. Benedict was named BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor. This is an award for excellence in teaching over a lifetime, and is a title that she will carry for the rest of her career at BG. It is very prestigious as only one is named each year. The competition is fierce, and the candidate needs strong credentials. The Department is fortunate to have a history with this award as we have had two previous faculty in Economics win the award, Drs. Browne and Haas and also Dr. Mota in Legal Studies. Dr. Benedict deeply and richly deserves this award.

As chair, I see the student evaluations and I also know who is doing the readings courses. Mary Ellen always has high student evaluations and, more to the point, very strong written comments. Students who come to economics with a strong belief that they will not succeed are delighted

with the success they can generate under Dr. Benedict’s guidance. They respond eagerly to her one-on-one efforts. Moreover, students follow her into higher level classes. One important part of what she does is to develop a research interest in students. Students coming to her labor or econometrics classes often do not see themselves as someone who would want to do research, but Dr. Benedict develops an interest in the student and works to help the student generate the research. They follow her into readings courses where they can push their work even further. She has been successful in helping students take their work to conferences where they present. They often win prizes for their work, and she is a strong part of their success. She particularly likes the interaction with students and the opportunity to help them develop their thinking and research skills. As a result, in 2004 she won the Elliot Blinn award for overseeing undergraduate research. She has had graduate and undergraduate students as co-authors.

Another aspect of Dr. Benedict’s interest in teaching is the extent to which she mentors young faculty and helps them become acclimated to the teaching culture in the department.

Because of strong leadership from senior faculty, the department has developed a culture of interest in teaching, and she has taken a strong role in helping young faculty make the transition to what we are looking for in the classroom.

Dr. Benedict has also been the primary mover in our undergraduate research contest and conference.

Over the past 9 years the department has provided an opportunity for undergraduate students from Northwest Ohio, Southeast Michigan and Indiana to participate in a research contest. She has urged her own students to enter, has worked to promote the contest, and then on conference day (March 26, 2011 for the current one), she is there to help with the administrative details.

She has acted as judge and helps find others to judge as well as provides financial support for the project. It would not have continued this long without her excellent efforts.

When asked, she says that she is proud of what her students do, and is appreciative of the support she received from students and colleagues for the award. She believes that support made a big difference. The truth is that she makes a difference.

I know this because students tell me this both in person and in their evaluation comments.

Dr. Mary Ellen Benedict

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Dr. Fuerst speaks at a FED conference

For an economist who specializes in monetary theory and models of credit, the last two years have been quite remarkable. A key turning point was the peak and then subsequent sharp decline in house prices and homeowner’s equity. Home purchases are highly leveraged, so that these effects are magnified in to the macro economy. What caught many economists by surprise (including me!), was that this lead to an old-fashioned run on the parallel banking system, leading to broader declines in asset prices and the collapse (or near-collapse) of numerous financial firms.

As an economic theorist, these events were particularly exciting for two reasons. First, we have limited historical experience in dealing with these events so it is difficult (if not impossible) to empirically analyze the effects of the financial crisis from looking at data. That is, one cannot use data to analyze an event if the event is quite rare. Hence, we need to use theory. Second, existing macroeconomic theory had typically ignored financial issues (“agency costs”). Hence, there was suddenly a sharp increase in the demand for theoretical macro models with financial constraints, and the existing supply of such models was relatively sparse. Both effects implied a sudden increase in the demand for new theoretical work.

Responding to this need, the Federal Reserve System has subsequently sponsored several research conferences focusing on macro models that incorporate financial effects. One such conference was held in June 2009 at the Board of Governors in Washington, DC. I was delighted that one of my working papers (co-authored with Charles Carlstrom at the Cleveland Fed, and Matthias Paustian at the Bank of England) was chosen to be presented and discussed at the conference.

The paper, titled “Optimal Monetary Policy in a Model with Agency Costs,” demonstrated how agency costs and financial frictions could be incorporated into an existing macro model framework in a tractable way. Within the model, one can turn “on” and “off” the financial frictions, thus isolating the marginal effect that financial frictions have on the preferred monetary policy. Two important results are: (1) the central bank should in general respond to movements in the risk premium, and (2) the existence of financial frictions makes it desirable for the central bank to be more forward-looking when setting policy.

Dr. Tim Fuerst

You can read more about the paper and the conference here: http:// www.federalreserve.gov/events/conferences/fmmp2009/agenda.htm The paper has since been published in the Journal of Money Credit and Banking in the fall of 2010.

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A Conversation with Bill Easterly

By John Hoag

One of the most visible of our graduates is William Easterly, Professor of Economics at NYU who has become prominent in the world of development economics. I caught him at home in New York City and had a chance to ask him some questions and to hear his reflections on his life and his ideas.

What follows is my understanding of and a condensation of what he said; the conversation was longer than reported here. The conversation was structured around a list of questions as you will see.

How did you become interested in development economics?

His father was a professor of Biology at BGSU and had a Fulbright to Ghana when Bill was 12. He is not sure how this folds into the equation, but believes it had an impact. When in graduate school, he became friends with a number of students from Latin America, especially Mexico and the interest was deepened through that link.

He spent a year in Mexico during his graduate school period and his initial interest in development was in Latin America. His interest in Africa has come more recently.

What impact do you think your work has had?

It is hard to tell! Probably the big impact was generated in his debate with Jeff Sachs which went public and higher profile than most debates between economists. He felt he was able

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to convince some that Sachs’ view of development was too simple and could be counterproductive in terms of development.

He hopes his academic papers have affected other academics which may eventually filter to the policy level, but it is hard to know exactly what impact there is from this line of research. He feels he has been pulled to applied and policy relevant work more and more, and his work is designed to address a policy issue.

In your talk at BG, you seemed to argue that countries with very high growth rates cannot sustain them for long and will, at some point, regress to their mean growth. Does this mean that there is little we can do to affect their long run growth?

He sees the long run growth as composed of two components, a permanent growth rate and a transitory growth rate. By transitory, he does not mean something simply random, but things like the development of a new export industry, the discovery of a comparative advantage we did not otherwise know of, or some entrepreneurial activity that was

dormant before. These effects, sometimes facilitated by policy, cause the measured growth rate to soar, which causes notice. So we notice the high transitory growth. But what happens is that at some point, the transitory portion disappears, and we end up back at the permanent growth rate.

He sees the permanent growth rates as having a distribution (by country) that is approximately normal and most fall within the range of 1-3% per person per year. We want to believe we have an effect, but if so, the effect would likely be seen as transitory, and these transitory effects are affected by so many elements we don’t know how much is due to our intervention. It is not clear that we do have an effect on the permanent portion of the growth rate. The fact is that poverty is a horrible thing, and we want to make it go away. We can make poverty go away by increasing the growth rate, so we have an incentive to overestimate our effect. But if we are so successful, why is poverty still such an issue?

How would you characterize changes in your thinking over your career?

His criticism of the extreme optimism and hubris of economists about their ability to change the world arises from his own experience. He was involved with the transformation of the Soviet system into Russia and the former soviet republics. At the time, he believed that the “shock therapy” used to transform the Russian economy from communism to a market would work, and be relatively quick. His experience was that the transition was more painful and extended than he had expected and that those criticizing the shock therapy on grounds that we cannot know enough to know if this will work or not were right. As his understanding of what happened extended, he was drawn to a critical reflection of his own position, and realized that some changes might be in order. His current position is born out of his earlier experience.

In “Elusive Quest for Growth,” you seem to argue that economists don’t know enough to make significant policy relevant proposals. Is this a fair characterization of your message?

He hopes that his message is not that economists have no impact, but more about the kinds of knowledge that are useful and those that are not. If a nation wishes to develop, it would not be well served to employ an economist to come in to redesign the economic system. Trying to transform the entire society is useless. Economists know from their study of general equilibrium that trying to alter a whole system is too

much to ask. We simply cannot know enough to do this. There are too many unintended consequences, too many details we cannot attend. But there are specific, narrower questions on which economists have something useful to say. We should make adjustments so that social returns and private returns line up, and then allow the market to work. We are beginning to understand that institutions are organic and evolve. We just do not know enough to reengineer institutions and entire societies.

What advice do you have for aspiring economists?

First, use the lessons of economics as guides for your own development.

Look to your comparative advantage.

Understand too, that if you want to be well known, one needs to take risk.

One big outcome is worth ten smaller outcomes. Don’t be afraid to reallocate your resources toward activities that are likely to have higher payoff.

The conversation ended with my thanks for his open conversation and his willingness to take the time to talk with me. It was a wonderful conversation reflecting his wide range of interests.

Report from the Economics Club

By Rachel Childers

The Economics Club again had a successful year that included several campus wide activities as well as private speakers and presentations.

The year began by inviting Dr. Peter VanderHart to discuss his new book Powerful Pai Gow Poker: Best Play Against the Casino which uses game theoretic computer simulation to discover the optimal playing strategies for an increasingly popular casino game, pai gow poker.

The group then organized the annual fall fundraiser, a midnight bake sale.

Members baked cookies, brownies and treats to sell to fellow students returning from a night on the town. The group would like to extend a thank you to Dr. Neil Browne who generously paid above market price to support the organization. In the spring semester, the group organized a campus wide seminar featuring Dr. Louis Benedict and Dr. Dion Farganis discussing the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizen’s United. The group also invited Dr. Dan Klein to discuss the economics of investing and the stock market.

However, as has become tradition for the Economics Club, the hallmark event was a trip to the Midwest Economics Association Conference in Chicago, IL. Several graduate students took a road trip to Chicago to spend two days at the conference as well as two nights enjoying Chicago life.

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BGSU Faculty Association Wins Right to Bargain Collectively

By Mary Ellen Benedict

On Wednesday, October 20, 2010, the State Employment Relations Board tallied the votes, and faculty overwhelmingly voted for collective bargaining, 391-293. Formal certification occurred on November 18th. As the year unfolds, the Bowling Green State University Faculty Association (BGSU-FA), led by Associate Professor David Jackson of Political Science, will begin the process of formalizing a constitution, deciding on priorities, and beginning the process of negotiating a first contract with the university administration.

As those of you who took my labor relations class in recent years know, this is not the first time the BGSU faculty attempted to unionize. Twice before, most recently in the early 1990s, the faculty voted against collective bargaining.

So, what was different this time around? First, the Faculty Association played the “timing game” much better compared to previous unionization attempts. Although there was plenty of talk about collective bargaining on campus for months, the union group

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waited until about 58% of the faculty voted to hold the election. Once the signed petition cards were delivered to SERB in February, the FA began a well-orchestrated campaign to have the vote scheduled for as soon as possible. Second, the efforts of the administration to delay the vote were limited. The University and the FA haggled over whether tenure/tenure track and nontenured faculty could be in the same bargaining unit and which individuals could be included in the bargaining unit. Because many of the Ohio public institutions have gone through the same fights before, today the SERB hearing officers have set laws and a number of precedents to make these types of determination more quickly than they did twenty years ago. In Ohio, it is not unusual for a bargaining unit to include tenured, tenure-track, and nontenured fulltime faculty. Department chairs and a number of administrative positions are excluded from the bargaining unit.

Thus, dilatory tactics, such as fighting over who can be in the unit, are not effective in today’s environment, at least not in Ohio’s public higher education system. Third, the administration and the faculty’s antiunion group were slow to react to the union movement. The administration waited until the formal request for a vote before sending out any anti-union messages.

And, with declining state funding, the University had little resources to hike salaries and waited until the summer of 2010. The subsequent paltry raise did little to change individuals’ views of collective bargaining. Further, the anti-union BGSU Advocates for Academic Independence would occasionally write e-mails to the faculty about the negative consequences of unionization, but the letters were few and uninspired. Another problem for the administration was that the students were more supportive of the union movement this time around. In fact, USG complained that the administration used student tuition dollars to develop anti-union advertisements, right around the same time as the voting occurred.

The end result was a vote for the BGSU-FA. The unit is associated with the national American Association for University Professors (AAUP), the same organization that helped the FA in the 1990s. It will be interesting to see how the next set of interactions between the administration and the FA play out – already there is talk from university officials that it will be “some time” before a contract can be negotiated. We’ll keep you informed of the developments!

Discussion on Cap and Trade On October 19 the Economics Club (along with Net Impact BGSU) organized a discussion on cap and trade policies. Dr. Peter VanderHart, Professor of Economics, and Dr. Gary Silverman, Professor of Environmental Health and Director of BGSU’s Environmental Programs, presented the arguments for and against this proposed policy.

As you may know, cap and trade has been put forth as a way to efficiently control the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important of the gases associated with climate change.

Dr. VanderHart presented evidence that CO2 concentrations have gone up in the last several decades, and that temperatures have also increased, although not as much as previously predicted by climate scientists. He then noted that despite the claims of some, that there is some uncertainty about the degree of sensitivity of the climate to CO2 concentrations, largely due to uncertainty surrounding the feedback effects of clouds. Dr. Silverman countered that scientists are quite confident about warming effects of CO2, and likened it to the theory of gravity. He posited that remaining uncertainties were similar to the effect of wind resistance on a falling object - it may change the results, but not overturn the theory. Dr. Silverman also cited the precautionary principle - that if there is even a small chance of a very bad thing happening, one should take significant action to prevent it. While the two speakers disagreed on the magnitude and certainty of the problem, they were in agreement that policy actions are worth considering.

The policy options available to control CO2 emissions include regulation (which may include dictating the amount that can be emitted, or control equipment that must be installed), and taxation (which could be levied on the goods produced by CO2 emitting activities, on the emissions themselves, or on fuel that when burned emits CO2). Regulation has the advantage of controlling the quantity of emissions, but is generally considered to do so inefficiently.

Taxes effectively put a price on emissions (thus achieving reduction more efficiently than regulation), but do not precisely control emissions, which would vary according to economic conditions. Cap and trade policies potentially offer the best of both policies: Emissions would be “capped”, and emitters would have to acquire permits, which they then could buy and sell to one another. The market price of these permits helps ensure that they are allocated efficiently, while the cap guarantees that only a certain level of emissions occurs.

The rest of the session focused on the pros and cons of cap and trade versus alternative approaches. Dr. Silverman was enthusiastic about the policy’s ability to limit emissions, and simultaneously put a price on the emissions, which would tend to encourage clean technologies. Dr. VanderHart pointed out that the price of the permits may vary quite a bit, and presented evidence of sulfur dioxide permits large variation in price recently. VanderHart also criticized how cap and trade might be implemented, with previous polluters using political power to ensure that they are granted a large initial allocation of permits. He further made the case for a carbon tax, noting that it would not require a new bureaucracy, simply a modification of existing excise taxes on coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Dr. Silverman pointed out that the cap and trade strategy is likely to be much more politically palatable than a new tax, and thus may be a better approach given the potential seriousness of the issue.

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Alumni Update

Several of our readers responded to our questionnaire in our last newsletter.

Here is what some of our alumni have been doing.

2009 Amanda Jernigan – Working for the Speedway Corporate Office in Enon, Ohio. Also earning her MA in Public Administration degree at Central Michigan University.

2009 Joseph Newhard. In the Ph.D. program in applied economics at Clemson University in South Carolina.

2009 Nathan Gamellia. In Goodrich (Aerospace) Corporation’s financial leadership program. It’s a two year rotational program.

2009 Kevin Black - Columbus, OH. Interest Rate Risk Analyst at the Huntington Bank Headquarters.

2009 Jay Sharp – Bowling Green, OH. Employed at BGSU as administrative staff and pursuing a graduate degree in Geology.

2009 Jeyhun Huseynov. Working as a specialist at the Banking Supervision Department, The Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

2009 Rajeevee Panditharatna.

Working for IHS Global Insight.

2009 Yang Yu. Pursuing a Ph.D. in Statistics at BGSU. 2009 Nasiba Imaralieva – Kyrgyszstan. Works as Head of the Monetary Policy Division of the Economics Department in the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic.

2008 Darcy Arrico-Schmidt Centerville, OH. Working in Sales Operations at LexisNexis.

2007 James Olsen. Volunteering with a Farmer’s Federation in Nairobi.

He will be working with them on

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evaluating a number of farm microenterprises throughout the country.

2007 Zhongting (Vivian) Li. Consultant at Information Control Corporation in the Columbus, Ohio area.

2007 Andrew McCann - Stamford, Connecticut. Working as a Marketing Analyst for Nielsen.

2007 Anna Glett. OEM Account Representative at Cummins.

2006 & 2007 - Ryan Eiben. In the Ph.D. in Economics program at Indiana University, started Fall, 2010.

2002 Juan Zhou, Washington D.C. Working for Price Waterhouse Coopers in the Financial Instrument and Credit Group.

2002 Jaime Ventura – Ann Arbor, MI. Working at the American National Election Study which is housed at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan.

2001 Todd Fulop – Senior Consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton. Also earning his MBA through the Executive Program at UVA Darden School of Business.

2006 Paul Spiller and Yumi Tanaka got married in 2010.

2000 Stacey Konesky-Baxter.

Working at JP Morgan Chase. Married with two sons.

2006 Frederick Asiedu, Cleveland, OH. Internal Auditor, Nacco Industries, Inc.

1999 Kim Ruhl. Assistant Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University.

2006 Brent Meyer – Cleveland, OH. Economic Analyst, Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

1998 Matt Ondrejko – Marketing Manager EMEA with Ridge Tool Europe. He is living with his wife and daughter in Europe.

2005 Myron Lewis. Credit Products Analyst at the Bank of America.

1994 Kelly Shaffer-Rudin – Bloomington, IL. Communications Analyst for State Farm Insurance.

Kelly and her husband welcomed their first child in May, 2010.

2005 Cheryl Smith–Deichert - Arlington, VA. Working as an Assistant Project Manager for Complete Building Services, Washington D.C. 2004 James Oche – Washington, D.C. Director, Modeling and Methods, Enterprise Risk Management, Freddie Mac. Married with one daughter.

1975 Dr. Trent Boggess. Founding Dean of the newly created College of Business Administration at Plymouth State University.

2004 Bingqing Zhou. Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health.

2002 Adam Kanar. Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management at Brock University’s Business School, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.

Please visit our alumni update site and tell us what you’re doing: http://www.business.bgsu.edu/econ/econalumn

The Economic Department’s 2009-10 Stars Congratulations ODE Inductees The Economics Department inducted several new members into Omicron Delta Epsilon, the Economics Honorary Society.

Fall 2009: Brendan Keep, Lee Norman, Matthew Quinn, Walter Ryley, Branden Stultz Spring 2010: Robin Britt, Casey Castro, Greg Cornish, Andrew Dehnhoff, Jason Hartigan, Beth Kosanovich, Daniel Vielhaber, and Klaus Uli Zumbach Fall 2010: Artan Mehmeti, Jessica Robbins, Kyle Sullivan, and Gulnara Toyjanova Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities Six economics students were inducted into Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities in 2010. These students were selected for this honor based on their academic achievement, service to the community, leadership in co-curricular activities, and potential for continued success. Our 2010 inductees were Casey Casto, Rachel Childers, Jason Hartigan, Rebekah Livingston, Matthew Quinn, and Walter Ryler.

National Student Achievements and Awards Rachel Childers won the Frank W. Taussig award from Omicron Delta Epsilon. The Frank W. Taussig Article Award is a competitive award bestowed upon the undergraduate or recent graduate in Rachel Childers economics submitting the best article in any year. She was selected for this honor in 2009 and received a cash prize of $1000 and her paper was published in the American Economist. In addition, the ODE chapter at BGSU received a $200 award.

Spring 2010 ODE inductees (left to right) Andrew Dehnhoff, Daniel Vielhaber, Greg Cornish, Beth Kosanovich, Jason Hartigan, Casey Casto, and Klaus Uli Zumbach

College and Departmental Student Achievements and Awards Rebekah Livingston won the Alumni/Faculty Economics Fall 2010 ODE inductees (left to right) Artan Mehmeti, Scholarship, Gregory Cornish Gulnara Toyjanova, Jessica Robbins, and Kyle Sullivan won the Navin Scholarship for Public Sector Economics Award as well as the Amena Khatun Economics Scholarship, Kyle Sullivan and Domenic Varricchio both won a Vimala Krishnan Book Award, and Theodore Brown won the Dolores Reynolds Book Award. Rebekah Livingston also won the William R. Hoskins Scholarship and Tony Hunter was a finalist for the Karl E. Vogt Award. These are both college awards.

Faculty Awards John Hoag was this year’s recipient of the College of Business Faculty Service Award. Tim Fuerst was one of only seven business professors to be awarded a 2010 summer research grant. He used his award to work on a paper entitled, Optimal Indexation in Risky Loan Contracts. Finally, Mary Ellen Benedict was named Distinguished Teaching Professor for the University.

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Colloquium Series for 2010

We had a very busy colloquium series this year.

Dr. Hoag served as colloquium coordinator and invited a wide variety of speakers to BGSU. Below is a list of the colloquia for 2010.

January 29, 2010: Dr. Xinyue Ye, Center for Regional Development and School of Earth, Environment, and Society, BGSU, presented “Space-Time Analysis of Regional Development in China.”

February 19, 2010: Dr. Elsy Thomas K, Assistant Professor of Economics, BGSU Firelands, presented “The Empirics of Health-Aid and Infant Mortality: A Semiparametric Study.”

September, 24, 2010: Roberto Croce, Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, Ohio State University, presented “Monetary Policy and the Housing Cycle.”

October 22, 2010: Kevin Pflum, Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, Ohio State University, presented “Regulating a Monopolist with Unverifiable Quality.”

Successful graduates move on to further their education in Economics

Several of our MA students have moved on to Ph.D. programs in economics. Two of our students, Ryan Eiben (who graduated in 2007) and Casey Casto, went to Indiana.

In addition, Amanda Stype found her way to Michigan State. Rachel Childers was one of the two enhanced university fellowship recipients this year at the University of Kansas, and Daniel Vielhaber joined former student Shukrat Musinov at Tennessee. Xue Wu (who earned her MA in Economics in 2009) finished her MA in Applied Statistics at BGSU and went on to the Ph.D. program in Economics at OSU. This has been a strong class and their placement reflects well on our program. In addition to our MA students, we’ve also had a few of our econ undergraduate students, move on to our MA program. Beth Kosanovich, Walter Ryley, and Branden Stultz graduated from our undergraduate program in 2010 and started our MA program this fall.

Congratulations to each of these students, and best wishes for their future!

October 25, 2010: Dr. William Easterly, Professor of Economics, New York University, presented “The Skeptics are our Only Hope: Knowledge and Progress Against Global Poverty.”

November 5, 2010: Dr. Dongwoo Yoo, Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, Ohio State University, presented “Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions.”

2010-11 Graduate Students in the Master of Arts in Economics program

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