Kemper Fellowship

Chancellor Robert Hemenway pre-sented Professor Elizabeth Asiedu with a $5,000 W.T. Kemper Fellowship in recognition of her teaching and ad-vising excellence. The awards are sponsored by the William T. Kemper Foundation and matching funds from KU Endowment.

student AwArds

The Department of Economics honored outstanding under-graduate students at the annual awards banquet May 6 in the Adams Alumni Center. Faculty members from the Department selected the stu-dents for awards and schol-arships based on academic achievement. Thanks to generous donor support, the Department pre-sented 26 students with awards and scholarships.

AwArds presented

John Ise Award – Emily Geier and Kelli Bird.Domenico Gagliardo Award – Vincent Myers.R. S. Howey Award – Cristina Fernandez.A. J. Boynton Award – Andrew Conner, Leah Mero, Mark Skoglund, Ishaan Saxena.Leland Prichard Scholarship – Brandon Minister, Tazkargy Arai, Ryan Wing.A. J. Boynton Scholarship – Marie Hull, Patrick Ford, Rachel Koch, Cooper Allton.A. J. Boynton Scholarship – Cori Ast, John Larson, Daniel Hamm, Arai Takayuki.A. J. Boynton Scholarship – Lindsay Mayer, Michael Trabon, Michael Alley.Oswald Scholarship – Lucas Lux, Alison Zeigler, Carol Liang, Anthony Falcon.

continued on page 2….

Fall 2008

The KU Economist VOL 1 / ISSUE 1 FALL 2008

in this issue

10 Message From the Chair

NEWS AND FEATURES Undergraduate Student Awards Charles W. Oswald Welcome New Faculty

FACULTY NEWS3 News and Awards5 Recent Publications

STUDENT NEWS7 Undergraduate News 8 Graduate News Doctoral Dissertations Conference Presentations Welcome Class of 2008

SEMINAR SERIES – 20089 Guest Speaker Series CONFERENCES5 Midwest Econometrics Group Conference on Economic Theory NBER/NFS/CEME Conference on General Equilibrium Theory Midwest Economic Theory and I. E. Conference

10 THE SUPPORT STAFF

11 ALUMNI NEWS

11 THE EVENTS GALLERY

Charles W. Oswald, KU Economics ’51, has made a series of very generous gifts to the Department of Economics.Charley’s first gift of $1 million estab-lished the Oswald Faculty Scholars Pro-gram intended to increase the Depart-ment’s ability to compete for, and help support, top-level new faculty members. Eight assistant professors have now been supported as Oswald Scholars under this very successful program. In 2001 Charley contributed $10 million to KU, of which $6 million came to the Department of Eco-

nomics, and more recently Charley has pledged an additional $10 million. These gifts have provided three Distinguished Professor positions, an Os-wald Undergraduate Scholars Program, seminars and conferences which have brought several hundred economists to KU, new graduate student funding, enhanced teaching and research support for faculty members and graduate students and enhanced administrative support. In recognition of these gifts the undergraduate economics program at KU has been named the Charles W. Oswald Program in Economics.

ChArles w. oswAld

continued on page 2….

Kelli Bird and Emily Geier receive John Ise Awards

http://economics.ku.edu

Charles Oswald and Chancellor Robert Hemenway

Professor Asiedu and student

PAGE 2 THE KU ECONOMIST

student AwArds Continued . . .

the AwArds

The Arthur J. Boynton, Domenico Gagliardo, R.S. Howey and John Ise awards are given annually to graduating seniors with exceptional academic records. The John Ise Award rec-ognizes the most outstanding academic achievement. Un-dergraduate scholarships include Arthur J. Boynton, Charles W. Oswald and Leland J. Pritchard scholarships. — The Arthur J. Boynton Memorial Awards and Scholar-ships were established by friends, former students and as-sociates after Professor Boynton’s death in 1928. A longtime member of the economics department, Professor Boynton came to KU in 1903 and served as head of the department from 1915 to 1924. When his wife, Flora Boynton, died in 1978, most of her estate was added to the fund. — The Domenico Gagliardo Award was established after Gagliardo’s death in 1955 to honor his teaching, schol-arship and impressive accomplishments in scholarship and public service. He joined the economics department in 1923. Professor Gagliardo, who began working in coal mines in Crawford County as a seventh-grader and started high school at age 20, specialized in labor economics.— The R.S. Howey Award, established upon the retirement of the late Richard S. Howey, recognizes outstanding stu-dents majoring in economics. He joined the faculty in 1929, taught for 44 years and subsequently continued to help es-tablish the notable Howey Collection of books in economics and economics history at Spencer Research Library. — The John Ise Award is funded from sales of Ise’s book, “The American Way,” a collection of his speeches. A com-mittee from the economics department and the KU School of Business published and distributed the book. Professor Ise, a native of Downs and the author of “Sod and Stubble,” was a member of the economics faculty at KU from 1916 to 1955.— Leland J. Pritchard Scholarships honor a prolific writer on political economy and former professor of finance and economic statistics. Professor Pritchard is the author of “Money and Banking,” a definitive and widely used econom-ics text originally published in 1958. A former dean of the School of Business, he also was chair of the economics de-partment from 1955 to 1962.— Charles W. Oswald Scholarships were established with a part of the very generous gifts that Charley Oswald has made to KU. Charley is a Hutchinson native who received a bachelor’s degree in economics from KU in 1951. He was chairman and CEO of National Computer Systems, now NCS Pearson, from 1970 to 1994. Charley is a trustee emeritus of KU Endowment.

oswAld Continued . . .

“Few alumni of the University of Kansas have the ca-pacity and the generosity to transform an entire de-partment through their support, but Charley Oswald is one of them. His belief in the value of his KU educa-tion and his vision for future KU economics students have made KU a recognized leader in economics edu-cation. This is an outstanding gift commitment.”1

Charley earned a master’s degree in business ad-ministration in 1953 from Harvard University. A native

welCome new FACulty

Tarun SaberwalTarun joins the Department of Economics this Fall as an As-sistant Professor and Oswald Scholar. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Univer-sity of California at Berkeley and his M.A. in mathematics, also from Berkeley. He received an M.B.A. from the University of Cincinnati. Tarun’s work experience spans academics and government, with tours of duty at the Federal Reserve

Board in Washington D.C., the University of Texas at Austin, and most recently, at Washington University in St. Louis. Before pursuing doctoral studies, he worked for some time in industry. Tarun’s specialization and research areas are microeconomics (theory and applied) and financial economics (especially household finance). He stud-ies competitive markets, strategic economic interac-tions, and household debt decisions. Tarun lives in Lawrence with his wife and two sons, aged 5 years and 7 months.

Ronald CaldwellRon joined the department in the Fall of 2007 as an Assistant Professor and Oswald Schol-ar. He was born and raised in Bellingham, Washington, andreceived his B.A. in Economics from Western Washington Uni-versity, graduating Magna Cum Laude and received the Rachel M. Storer Award in Labor Eco-nomics. He received his Ph.D. in Economics (2007), an M.A.

in Pharmacy (2007), and an M.A. in Economics (2004), from the University of Washington. Ron’s specialization and research areas are la-bor economics, health economics, economics of race, and applied econometrics. His most recent research considers the topic: The Effects of Affirmative Actions Policies in University Admissions on Human Capital Development of Minority Children.

of rural Hutchinson, he graduated from Hutchinson High School in 1946 as valedictorian of his class and a star on the 1945 undefeated football team. Currently the chairman of Rotherwood Invest-ments LLC in Minnesota, he was the chairman and CEO of National Computer Systems (now NCS Pear-son) from 1970 until 1994.

1. Chancellor Robert Hemenway, KU Endowment Association – January 19, 2005

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 3

FACulty news

Elizabeth Asiedu, who is serving her second year as the As-sociate Department Chair and the Director of Graduate Pro-grams, is the recipient of the 2008 Kemper Teaching Award and the 2008 Byron Shutz Award for Excellence in Teaching. She was also featured in the 2008 KU Women of Distinction Calendar, published by the Emily Taylor Resource Center. Elizabeth presented a paper at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) in March 2008 as part of the KU-UCR 50th an-niversary celebrations. She was also invited to participate as a resource person in the Young Economists Outreach Program, at the University of Ghana in January 2008. This program, sponsored by Cornell University and USAID, is a mentoring program for junior economists in Ghana. Elizabeth is currently collaborating on a project “Foreign Direct Investment, Employment and Technological Spill-overs in Costa Rica,” with Professor Jose Cordero from UCR. The project is funded by the KU-UCR Collaboration Grant. She’s also working with researchers at the Regional Insti-tute of Population Studies, University of Ghana on a project “Development on the Move: Measuring and Optimizing the Economic and Social Impacts of Migration in Ghana,” funded by the Global Development Network. In March 2008, Elizabeth, in collaboration with Professor Garth Myers, the Director of the African Studies Resource Center (ASRC) received a grant for $12,000 from the Oswald Family Foundation to provide scholarships for KU graduate students doing research on health related issues in Africa.

William A. Barnett, Distinguished Oswald Professor of Mac-roeconomics, has received a very favorable review on the International Monetary Fund web site for his book, Inside the Economists Mind: Conversations with Eminent Econo-mists, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. The book was co-edited with Paul Samuelson. The Korean translation of the book recently appeared in Korea and has been favorably reviewed in over a dozen newspapers in that country. The Chinese edition has been published by Peking University Press and the news of the release has just appeared on the MIT blog. The Russian translation is to appear from an important publisher, which is backed personally by President Dmitry Medvedev, and a German edition just went under contract at Wiley VCH. Bill was an invited speaker and mentor at the Advanced Training Program on Economics, Research, and Publishing, University of Washington, Seattle, August 11-29, 2008. He was the sole speaker, presenting three successive papers, for one day of the program. He was also assigned to serve as mentor to three of the Asian economists who attended the event. The event will produce a book, to be published by World Scientific. Half of the book will be based on his research. He was also an invited speaker at the Conference in Hon-or of Wayne Shafer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on May 2, 2008. During the day, he presented a research paper. In the evening, he was the plenary after dinner speaker on his book with Paul Samuelson.

Neal Becker, Assistant Professor of Economics, is the Direc-tor of the Oswald Program in Economics for Undergraduate Students at the University of Kansas. He received the first Charles Oswald Teaching Award in the Spring of 2007 and a teaching award from the Center for Teaching Excellence in 2008.

Neal is currently preparing to teach the first Oswald Scholars Seminar with the enrolled students’ help. This course is designed to challenge the highest achieving un-dergraduate students in the department, and this year the students will be studying the current financial crisis. “This had to be the topic of the seminar” Professor Becker said, “but it will be a real challenge. Because new analysis and information comes out daily, we will be lucky if we have to revise our syllabus only once a week.” At the end of the course, a hyper document will be linked to the department web page. Keep an eye out for the link.

Bernard Cornet, Oswald Distinguish Professor of Microeco-nomics, is currently working on the following research top-ics: financial economies, externalities, spatial economies, dynamic models in economics and increasing returns. In 2006 the College awarded Bernard and Joe Sicilian a two-year fund to conduct and administer research on “The-oretical Economics.” This allowed the Department to orga-nize a Conference in 2007 and bring to campus the Nobel Laureate Edward Prescott. It also permitted a short visit in 2008 of Professor Yoshi Otani, a former member of the De-partment of Economics of KU. Bernard also edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Math-ematical Economics in honor of Professor Roko Aliprantis, which appeared in January 2008 (vol. 44 issues 1-3) in col-laboration with E. Prescott and N. Yannelis. In 2008 Bernard was invited to give seminars at Wash-ington University at St. Louis, the University of California at Davis, the University of Southern California, the University of Queensland and the University of Tokyo. He gave invited talks in the conferences held at the Uni-versity of Cuba, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham-paign in honor of Wayne Shafer, the University of Manchester in honor of Werner Hildenbrand, the University of Tunis, the GETW held at Paestum, and the PET08 Conference held in Seoul. He also gave presentations at the Meeting of the Econometric Society held in Wellington, the GETA2008 Con-ference organized in Xianmen, and the Midwest Conference on Economic Theory and International Trade in Columbus. Bernard was an invited Professor of the University of Queensland in July 2008, where he pursued a long time sci-entific cooperation with Professor Rabee Tourky on Finan-cial Markets.

Dietrich Earnhart is the Director of the Center for Environ-mental Policy. Engaging in the social sciences, engineering studies, and legal studies, this group examines various di-mensions of environmental policy. Dietrich is currently leading two interdisciplinary re-search teams. One team is examining farmers’ decisions to grow crops that can be used as feed stocks for bio-fuels. The second research team is examining cities’ and states’ efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of these efforts on energy use by households and commercial businesses. The multi-disciplinary research team will examine the dynamics of certain coupled natural and human systems relating to global climate change. The primary human sys-tem is governments’ adoption of climate change mitigation policies in the US, along with businesses’ and households’ reactions to these policies. The natural system is the global climate. Dietrich also continues his role as department Ambas-sador to the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at KU.

PAGE 4 THE KU ECONOMIST

His presentations include: “The Effect of Environmental Regulation on Firm Financial Performance: Short-Run versus Long-Run Implications,” presented at the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Meetings in New Orleans, LA, January 4, 2008. The paper was also presented at the Heartland Envi-ronmental and Resource Economics Workshop in Ames, IA, September 17, 2007. “The Effects of Financial Status on Corporate Environ-mental Performance: Liquidity, Solvency, and ‘Bottomline Success’,” presented at the Colorado State University Ag-ricultural and Resource Economics Departmental Semi-nar, March 23, 2007. The paper was also presented at the University of Colorado – Boulder Economics Departmental Seminar, March 22, 2007.

Mohamed El-Hodiri was honored with the Chancellors Club Career Teaching Award at the 30th annual gala by Chancellor Robert Hemenway and members of the organization. Mohamed has a 40-year career as a KU economics professor. Mohamed has taught 26 undergraduate courses and hon-ors tutorials, primarily in economics but also in western civ-ilization, mathematics, philosophy, sociology and Russian and Eastern European studies. On the graduate level, he’s taught 18 different courses. In addition, he’s mentored nu-merous graduate students. Congratulations to Mohamed.

David Faurot, an applied microeconomist, is teaching Sports Economics and Game Theory at the undergraduate level. Sports Economics studies sports teams and owners as profit maximizers, sports leagues as cartels, and athletes as workers and union members. Game theory studies interdependent choices by firms and workers and David’s research combines his course in-terests. He is trying to explain salary offers and bargaining in Major League Baseball salary arbitration. Salary offer choice and bargaining are games where two selfish maximizers, sports teams and players, seek the best attainable outcomes in interdependent decision environ-ments. David is an Undergraduate Advisor and also advises stu-dents working on honor’s theses in his special field of re-search. See Jesse Haug in Undergraduate News.

Donna Ginther testified before the Subcommittee on Re-search and Science Education of the U.S. House of Repre-sentatives on Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008, on May 8, 2008. Donna has been involved in mentoring postdoctoral research professionals (junior faculty and research econ-omists) in the economics profession since 2004. She orga-nized the CEMENT National Mentoring Workshop, sponsored by CSWEP and National Science Foundation, January 2008. The CEMENT workshops provide an opportunity for ju-nior economists to learn the unwritten rules in the eco-nomics profession in order to improve their professional development and the likelihood that they are promoted. She is actively involved in studying the impact of the CEMENT workshops on career outcomes. Donna received two NSF grants in 2007: “Collaborative Research MOD: Contributions of Foreign Students to Knowl-edge Creation and Diffusion” National Science Foundation, (with Shulamit Kahn and Megan MacGarvie). “Collaborative Research Workshop on linking NSF SED/SDR Data to Sci-entific Productivity” National Science Foundation, $15,641,

2007-2008 (with Gerald Marschke and Jinyoung Kim).Her presentations include: “Estimating the Impact of U.S. International Family Plan-ning Policies on HIV/AIDS Infection Rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, Population Association of America Conference,” March 2007. “Do Specific Skills Explain Inequality at the Top of the Wage Distribution?” Stockholm University, January 2007. “Does Science Promote Women? Evidence From Academia 1973-2001,” Kansas State University, April 2007, and Brandeis University, February 2007. “Does Marriage Matter for Kids? The Impact of Legal Mar-riage on Child Outcomes,” Population Association of Amer-ica Conference, March 2007.

Shigeru Iwata is currently working on research topics “Monetary Policy and Zero Interest Rate,” “International Risk Sharing,” and “Policy Evaluation in the Dynamic Context.” In 2008, Shigeru has given presentations at the Bank of Japan, Osaka University and Kobe University in Japan. In 2007 he made presentations at the Econometric Society Eu-ropean Meeting in Budapest, Hungary, and at the Econo-metric Society Far Eastern Meetings in Taipei, Taiwan. From October 2006 to January 2007, Shigeru was in-vited as a visiting scholar to conduct research at the Bank of Japan in Tokyo, Japan. He also visited, by invitation, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) in Washington, D.C., as a Resident Scholar, to conduct research on international fi-nance and development economics.

Ted Juhl is enjoying his tenth year at KU. He is conducting research on regression models with functional coefficients and developing the asymptotic theory on the equality of rolling regression coefficients. Both lines of research have applications in financial time series. His paper, “Monotonic Power in Tests for Changing Means” is forthcoming in the Journal of Econometrics. The Department of Economics at the University of Kan-sas was host for the 18th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Econometrics Group Meeting on the University of Kansas campus, October 17 and 18. Ted was the local organizer for the meeting.

Joshua L. Rosenbloom’s research (joint with former KU Economics graduate student Brandon Dupont, KU Business School faculty Ron Ash, and KU Business School gradu-ate student LeAnne Coder) on The Under-representation of Women in Information Technology, was featured this sum-mer in articles in the Boston Globe (May 18) and the New York Times (July 15, 2008), as well as a piece broadcast on National Public Radio. Joshua edited a volume of essays in honor of Tom Weiss, Professor Emeritus and former chair of the Department of Economics. It’s titled Quantitative Economic History: The Good of Counting, and was published by Routledge in 2008. He also gave a presentation at the 6th World Congress of Cliometrics earlier this year (July) on “The Role of Exports in the Colonial Economy.”

Giving to Economics at KUhttp://economics.ku.edu/giving/

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 5

ConFerenCes

The department has been host to four memorable conferences in as many years. Scholars from all over the world have attended and made presenta-tions including two Nobel prize winners, Professor Leonid Hurwicz and Professor Edward C. Prescott.

Midwest Econometrics Group MeetingOctober 17 & 18, 2008Mark Watson, Princeton University, Guest Dinner SpeakerConference Organizer: Ted Juhl

Conference on Economic Theory –In Honor of Roko AlprantisNovember 11 & 12, 2007Edward C. Prescott attending.Conference Organizer: Bernard Cornet

2006 NBER/NFS/CEME Conference on General Equilibrium TheoryOctober 6-8, 2006Conference Organizer: Bernard Cornet

Fall 2005 Midwest Economic Theory and Interna-tional Economics ConferenceOctober 14-16, 2005Conference Organizer: Bernard CornetLeonid Hurwicz attending

Please see the new Econ Department web site for more information and Bernard Cornet photos: http://www.economics.ku.edu/ Click Research and then Conferences.

reCent publiCAtions

“The Effect of Corruption on Firm Level Investment: Evidence from Transition Countries, Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa,” Elizabeth Asiedu and James Freeman, Review of Development Economics, forthcoming.

“Is the World Flat? Differential Regulation of Domes-tic and Foreign Owned Firms,” Elizabeth Asiedu and H.S. Esfahani, Quarterly Review of Economics and Fi-nance, 2008.

“The Impact of Trade and Investment Liberalization on Foreign Direct Investment, Wages and Employ-ment in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Elizabeth Asiedu and Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong, African Development Review, 2008.

“Forecast Design in Monetary Capital Stock Measurement,” William A. Barnett, Unja Chae and John Keating, in Per G. Berglund and Leanne J. Ussher (eds.), Critical Perspectives on Recent Developments in Macroeconomics, Routledge, forthcoming. “Rotterdam versus Almost Ideal Model: Will the Best Specification Please Stand Up?” William A. Barnett and Ousmane Seck, Journal of Applied Econometrics, forthcoming. “Consumer Preferences and Demand Systems,” William A. Barnett and Apostolos Serletis, Journal of Econometrics, forthcoming. “Toward a Bias Corrected Currency Equivalent Index,” William A. Barnett, John Keating and Logan Kelly, Economics Letters, forthcoming.

Edward C. PrescottLeonid Hurwicz

Roko Alprantis

http://economics.ku.edu

Tom Weiss, Professor Emeritus, retired from the department at KU on April 1, 2005, but he defi-nitely did not retire. He continues to do research on colonial economic development (funded at this time by NSF) and on the economic history of tourism. There are papers in progress and pre-sentations scheduled for both of these projects including the ASSA in San Francisco in January of 2009. Tom has taught a short course in Korea in each of the last two summers and is heading off to the University of Munich in November to teach a course on the Economic History of Colonial America – in English! All economics courses are taught in English at the University of Munich. Tom came to KU in the Fall of 1967, and was Chair from 1980 to 1985. He was Associ-ate Chair and Director of the Graduate Program 1974–1980.

PAGE 6 THE KU ECONOMIST

“International Financial Aggregation and Index Num-ber Theory: A Chronological Half-Century Empirical Overview,” William A. Barnett and Marcelle Chauvet, Open Economies Review, forthcoming. “Measurement Error in Monetary Aggregates: A Mar-kov Switching Factor Approach,” William A. Barnett, Marcelle Chauvet and Heather Tierney, Macroeconom-ic Dynamics, forthcoming.

“Divisia Monetary Index,” William A. Barnett in Wil-liam A. Darity (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition, vol. 2, Macmillan Refer-ence, 2008.

“The Supply of Money,” William A. Barnett in William A. Darity (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the So-cial Sciences, 2nd Edition, vol. 5, Macmillan Reference, 2008

“Operational Identification of the Complete Class of Superlative Index Numbers: an Application of Galois Theory,” William A. Barnett and Ki-Hong Choi, Jour-nal of Mathematical Economics, July 2008.

“Non-Robust Dynamic Inferences from Macro-econo-metric Models: Bifurcation Stratification of Confidence Regions,” William A. Barnett and Evgeniya Duzhak, Physica A, June 2008.

“Monetary Aggregation,” in Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence Blume (eds.), William A. Barnett in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, Mac-millan, 2008. “Does Science Promote Women? Evidence from Aca-demia 1973-2001,” Donna K. Ginther and Shulamit Kahn, Science and Engineering Careers in the United States, Richard B. Freeman and Daniel F. Goroff (eds.), University of Chicago Press for NBER, 2009. “Effectiveness of Government Interventions at Induc-ing Better Environmental Performance: Does Effective-ness Depend on Facility or Firm Features?”, Dietrich Earnhart and Robert Glickman, Boston College Envi-ronmental Affairs Law Review, v. 35, n. 3, 2008. “Stringency of Environmental Policies and Induced Pollution Reductions in a Transition Economy,” Dietrich Earnhart and Lubormir Lizal, Post-Communist Economies, v. 20, n. 2, June 2008.

“Note on Foreign Exchange Interventions at Zero In-terest Rates,” Shigeru Iwata and Shu Wu. Macroeco-nomic Dynamics, forthcoming.

“Monetary Policy and the Term Structure of Inter-est Rates When Short-term Rates are Close to Zero,” Shigeru Iwata, Monetary and Economic Studies, forthcoming.

“Stock Market Liberalization and International Risk Sharing,” Shigeru Iwata and Shu Wu. Journal of In-ternational Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, forthcoming.

“A Note on Inflation, Economic Growth, and Income Inequality,” Yi Jin, Macroeconomic Dynamics, forth-coming.

“Money, Credit, and Business Cycle Comovement,” Yi Jin and Zhixiong Zeng. Pacific Economic Review, forthcoming.

“Why are there so Few Women in Information Tech-nology? Assessing the Role of Personality in Career Choices,” Ronald A. Ash, Brandon Dupont, LeAnne Coder, and Joshua Rosenbloom. Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming.

“Reexamining the Distribution of Wealth in 1870,” Joshua Rosenbloom and Gregory W. Stutes, in Joshua L. Rosenbloom, ed., Quantitative Economic History: The Good of Counting (London: Routledge, forthcom-ing)

“Exports and the Economy of the Lower South Region, 1720-1770,” Joshua Rosenbloom with Peter C. Man-call and Thomas Weiss, in Alexander J. Field, ed., Re-search in Economic History, vol. 25, Elsevier, 2008

“When Worlds Collide: Different Comparative Static Predictions of Continuous and Discrete Agent Models with Land,” Marcus Berliant and Tarun Sabarwal. Re-gional Science and Urban Economics, forthcoming. “On the (Non-)Lattice Structure of the Equilibrium Set in Games with Strategic Substitutes,” Sunanda Roy and Tarun Sabarwal. Economic Theory, 37(1), 2008.

“Stock Market Liberalization and International Risk Sharing” Shu Wu and Shigeru Iwata, Journal of In-ternational Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, forthcoming. “Monetary Policy and Long-term Interest Rates”, Con-temporary Economic Policy,” Shu Wu, 2008.

Inside the Economist’s Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists, coedited by Paul A. Sameulson and William A. Barnett, Blackwell Publish-ing, 2007. Professor Barnett, Oswald Distinguished Pro-fessor of Macroeconomics, is the editor of the journal Macroeconomic Dynamics. The interviews originally ap-peared in the journal.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 7

student news

Congratulation to the Graduates of 2008!

174 undergraduates received degrees in Economics and many walked down the hill in the Spring. Cristina Hernandez, R.S. Howey Award winner, carried the banner for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Undergraduate Student News

After graduating from KU with a B.A. in Economics, Politi-cal Science, and International Studies in December 2007, Jay Kimmel was hired by the U.S. Department of State as an economic officer in the U.S. Foreign Service. Economic of-ficers promote trade and in-vestment, and advise govern-ment and business leaders

on host country economic policy. They advocate and implement U.S. foreign policy as it relates to the envi-ronment, science, technology, and health, and coor-dinate international financial assistance. Jay’s first two-year tour of duty will be in Luanda, Angola, and will be political in nature, where his re-sponsibilities will include serving as the liaison for a U.S. funded landmine removal program. He will draft reports on human rights, religious freedom, and traf-ficking in persons and report on political conditions in Angola as they relate to U.S. interests. He is currently receiving training in Portuguese in the Washington, D.C. area in preparation for his assignment. While an undergraduate, Jay studied abroad in Paris. While at KU and on KU Study Abroad programs, he studied Turkish, Uyghur, Russian, and Uzbek. “Cheers and all the best to everyone in Lawrence. I miss the place.”—Jay

Jessie Haug, recent graduate majoring in Econom-ics, French and Mathematics, is in the master’s de-gree program - Methods and Models in Quantitative Economics (Europe) - that he began in Bielefeld, Ger-many. For the Spring semester he moved to Paris where he will study at The University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne for the next year. When the program is completed he may stay in Paris for work on a Ph.D.

He has now changed his focus to finance and plans to write a thesis on some aspect of this year’s financial crisis. Jessie experienced a real academic shock coming into the program – new cul-ture, the level of competition, and teaching style were diffi-cult to adjust to. Most of the students went through this “shock” a second time when they moved to Paris as not all

classes were offered in English. Fortunately Jessie had studied abroad in France as an undergraduate and that made the transition easier. Jessie traveled in India for a month “…thanks to the money I saved up from my scholarship.” He re-ceived the John Ise Award as an outstanding graduat-ing senior from the Department of Economics at KU. His honors thesis, supervised by Professor David Faurot, combined three of his favorite things: basket-ball, economics, and gambling. The thesis was basi-cally a statistical analysis of whether or not there was a certain kind of gambling occurring in some of the major basketball universities including Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina. He tested whether or not there were too many games when teams lost by more than the Las Vegas spread.

Graduate Student News

Anne Barthel is a first year Ph.D. student and a world class curler. She was an exchange student at KU and then graduat-ed from the University of Mannheim, Germany, last summer. Her hometown, Oberstdorf, is one of the few places in Germany that has a curling club. Anne was introduced to

the sport in 1995 by a friend whose father was once a player. The team competed in state and national championships at the junior and senior levels winning the German Junior Championships in 2003 and 2004 and representing Germany in the 2003 World Junior Championships in Flims, Switzerland and the 2005 European Junior Challenge in Copenhagen. On the Women’s level, the team has not been able to qualify for any World Championships or the Olympics yet, “but who knows, maybe in a couple of years.” Anne was very happy when she learned there is a club in Kansas City and she will be going in for practice every Sunday throughout the season. We will watch for her at future Olympics!

Jay Kimmel

Jessie Haug

Anne Barthel

Cristina Hernandez

PAGE 8 THE KU ECONOMIST

Graduate Student Conference Presentations

Sarah Frazelle’s paper, “Barriers Within: Examining Gender, Race, and Participation in the Trio Program with College Success,” was presented at the Missouri Valley Economic Association. She also attended the NLS Workshop at Ohio State University, October 2007.

Ramu Gopolan presented his paper, “Restricted Par-ticipation and Arbitrage in Multiperiod Model,” at the Graduate Student Conference. He also presented the paper at the Missouri Valley Economic Association, September and October 2007.

Serena Huang presented a paper entitled, “The Effects of H-1B Visa Increase on Native Workers in Computer Science and Engineering,” at the Midwest Economics Association 72nd Annual Meeting in Chicago, March 2008. In October of 2007 she presented the paper, “The Role of English Proficiency in Immigrant-Native Earnings: Evidence from the 2003 NSCG and CPS,” at the Missouri Valley Economic Association. She also presented the paper, “The Role of English Proficien-cy in Immigrant-Native Earnings: Evidence from the 2003 SESTAT,” at the Western Economic Association International 82nd Annual Conference, July 2007.

Hisaya Kitaoka attended the Missouri Valley Eco-nomic Association meeting and presented a paper entitled, “Have U.S. Tariff Reductions Hurt Unskilled Workers? The Case of the U.S. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico during 1974-2004,” October 2007. He also presented the paper at the Mountain Plains Manage-ment Conference.

Ronnie Mukherjee presented a paper entitled, “Fam-ily Size and Sibling Subsidization: Evidence from Rural India,” at the Southern Economic Association Confer-ence, November 2007.

Victor Valcarcel presented a paper, “The Impact of Government Spending in a Two-Sector Model,” at the Western Economic Association International 82nd Conference, July 2007. He also presented the paper at the Missouri Valley Economic Association.

Recent Job Placements

Ph.D. Graduate Students in Economics found place-ments in academia, government and private industry.

-- Abdullah Al-Hassan – International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C.

-- Evgeniya Duzhak - Baruch College, CUNY, New York, NY.

-- Ramu Gopalan – University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas.

-- Logan Kelly - Bryant University, Smithfield, RI.-- Hisaya Kitaoka - Franklin College, Franklin, IN.-- John M. Leonard – University of Nebraska at

Omaha.-- Seunghae Grace O – Georgia State University, At-

lanta, GA.-- Hiroshi Murao – Aomori Public College, Aomori,

Japan.-- Victor Valcarcel – Texas Tech University, Lub-

bock, TX.-- Wei Zhou - G. R. Holdings, Kansas City, MO.

Students receiving M.A. degrees in Economics include:Zaier Aouani, Loubens Blaise, Han-Fang Chen, Lili Chen, Lijing Du, John M. Foote, Ramu Gopolan, Yusufu U. Kamara, Han Li, Sung Jin Kim, Hui Ma, Michael B. Mount, Mingming Zheng, Toshiyuki Wakana,

Doctoral Dissertations

-- Ramu Gopalan, “Contributions to Inter-Tempo-ral Models in Financial Economics,” 2008, Advisor: Bernard Cornet.

-- Victor Valcarcel, “Essays in Microeconomic Anal-ysis,” 2008, Advisor: John Keating.

-- Seunghae Grace O, “The World According to GARP: Nonparametic Weak Separability Test and its Monte Carlo Studies,” 2008, Advisor: William Barnett.

-- Hisaya Kitaoka, “Do U.S. Tariff Reductions Explain rising Wage Inequality?: The Case of U.S. Tariffs on Imports from Countries having Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.” 2008, Advisor: Joseph Sicilian.

-- Hiroshi Murao, “Three Essays in Applied Econo-metrics,” 2008, Advisor: Shigeru Iwata.

-- John Mark Leonard, “An Empirical Microeconomic Study of the Entrepreneur,” 2007, Advisor: Donna Ginther and Dietrich Earnhart.

-- Logan J. Kelly, “Of Stocks and Flows: Measuring the Stock of Money,” 2007, Advisor: William Barnett.

-- Evgeniya Aleksandrovna Duzhak, “Bifurcation Analysis of New Keynesian Functional Structure,” 2007, Advisor: William Barnett.

Graduate Student Photographers

The department is fortunate to have a talented group of graduate student photographers. They have contributed quality photos for the Econ Web Page and the Newsletter. Examples: Unal Eryilmaz – Graduate Student Party 2008, Isaac Kanyama – Hooding Ceremonies 2008, and Ronnie Mukherjee – Images of Lawrence and the KU campus. Go To: http://economics.ku.edu/ Click on People and then Gallery.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 9

Welcome New Graduate Students

As the academic year begins, the department holds a reception for new graduate students and GTAs. The students meet faculty and upper level students for lunch and plenty of conversation.

For a show of photos of the event go to the Depart-ment web site: http://economics.ku.edu – click on People and then Gallery.

The new Ph.D. students:Kablan AlKahtani, Ryadh AlKharei, Jo Arzola, Anne Barthel, Floyd Burris, Komla Dzigbede, Neepa Gaekwad, Yusufu Kamara, Huy Nguyen, and Dasha Stepanenko.

New M.A. students:Moayad Al Rasasi, Rudolph Ardon-Bogantes, Michael Barnaby, Noah Bittner, Joshua Foster, Jing Fu, Jamie Pena Gonzalez, Shangwen Huang, Matt Hunsaker, Richard Kinai, Ben Larrivee, Ifeoluwa Omoniyi, Eugenio Paulo, Nicolas Quintana-Ashwell, Alena Vorushilova, Boniface Yemba, and Qi Zhang.

seminAr series - 2008

the Guest speAKer series

An outstanding schedule of speakers included two of our own: Ramu Golapan, recent PhD graduate and Professor Yoshi Otani, former faculty member.

Leticia Arroyo, University of California at Davis, “In-equality in Republican America: Assessing the Ef-fects of Factor Endowments and Trade.”

Ann Carlos, University of Colorado, “Nutrition and the Standard of Living in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: A Comparison of Natives in the Canadian Sub-Ar-tic and Europeans”

Harrison Cheng, Southern California University, “Auctions with Resale and Common Value Auc-tions”

Albert Lee Chun, HEC Montreal, “Expectations, Bond Yields and Monetary Policy”

Gregory Clark, University of California at Davis, “Mal-thus to Modernity: Income, Fertility and Economic Growth in England, 1500-1914.”

Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University, “Risk Loving Af-ter the Storm: A Bayesian Network Study of Hurri-cane-Katrina Evacuees”

Jonas Fisher, FRB of Chicago, “First-Time Home Buy-ers and Residential Investment Volatility”

Bill Goffe, SUNY Oswego, “Next Steps in the Informa-tion Infrastructure in Economics”

Ramu Gopalan, University of Texas at Dallas, “Exis-tence of Equilibria in Financial Markets with Re-stricted Participation”

Todd Keister, FRB of NY, “Commitment and Equilib-rium Bank Runs”

Steffen Lippert, Massey University, Auckland, “ Ven-ture Capitalists, Asymmetric Information and Ownership in the Innovation Process” (Joint Semi-nar with the School of Business)

Margaret MacMillan, Tufts University and NBER, “Offshoring Jobs? Multinationals and US Manu-facturing Employment”

Yoshi Otani, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, “The Structure and Limit-ing Properties of Equilib-rium Consumption Allo-cations of a Lindahl Stra-tegic Game”

Dan Phaneuf, North Carolina State University, “Estimat-ing the Welfare Impacts of Snowmobile Use Restric-tions in Yellowstone Na-tional Park. Preferences for Public Lands Management Under Competing Uses: The Case of Yellowstone National Park”

Patrick Pintus, Université de la Méditerrainée, Aix-Marseille and FRB of St. Louis, “Procyclical Inter-national Capital Flows, Debt Overhang and Vola-tility”

Billy Pizer, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., “The Economics of Climate Change”

Apostolos Serletis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, “Oil Price Uncertainty”

Neng Wang, Columbia University, “Entrepreneurial Financing and Project Choice under Non-diversi-fiable Idiosyncratic Risk”

Zhijie Xiao, Boston College, “Conditional Quintile Es-timation for GARCH Models”

Yoshi Otani

Giving to Economics at KUhttp://economics.ku.edu/giving/

PAGE 10 THE KU ECONOMIST

Jeffery Wrase, Chief Econo-mist for Republican mem-bers of the U.S. Senate’s Joint Economic Committee, “Global Financial and Eco-nomic Fragility: How Did We Get Here and Where are We Going?”

Jeffery Wrase

Quantitative Economic History: The Good CountingEdited by Joshua L. RosenbloomPublished by Routledge – 2008

Rosenbloom has gathered together seven essays from leading quantitative eco-nomic historians, illustrat-ing the breadth of scope and continued importance of quantitative economic history. The chapters explore the economic and social transformations associated with the emergence of an industrial and post-indus-

trial economy, with most focusing on the trans-formations of the US economy in the late nine-teenth and early twentieth centuries. Joshua edited the volume of essays in hon-or of Tom Weiss, Professor Emeritus and former chair of the Department of Economics at KU.

messAGe From the ChAir

It is my great pleasure to introduce the first issue of The KU Economist, a newsletter of the Department of Economics at the University of Kansas. We hope that this newsletter will help us open a new avenue of communication with students, alumni, the University community and friends with an interest in what is go-ing on in economics at KU. We want to let you know more about what we are doing here, and we want you to let us know more about what you are doing wher-ever you are. The past ten years has been a period of tre-mendous excitement and rapid development for the Economics Department. We have several new and dis-tinguished faculty members. We have experienced a significantly increased interest in our undergraduate and graduate programs. Numerous teaching awards have recognized the dedication of our faculty mem-bers to our students and faculty and student research has expanded rapidly. To a large extent, the excite-ment which ignited and continues to sustain this de-velopment is the result of the tremendous support of Charley Oswald, one of the many alumni of whom we are so proud. In this issue you may learn about some recent happenings in the Department, about some of our students, our faculty and alumni. You will also find encouragement to contact us. We hope to share in-formation about you in futures issues of The KU Econ-omist. I want to thank Martha Hensley, who took the lead in bringing together the information about the accom-plishments of the department for the first newsletter. She is the instructor of an online course in Introduc-tory Economics, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster of the new department webpage. The department webpage continues to grow and provides important information for the department and is also our communication with the rest of the world. Please take a look at http://economics.ku.edu. We hope you will find the pages interesting and use-ful. Again, we look forward to hearing from you.

Joe Sicilianjsic@ku.edu

the support stAFF

Leanea Wales, Office Manager, has been holding the Department to-gether for almost 20 years. Leanea came to the Economics Department in June, 1989. Joe Sicilian, Chair, con-tends “She is the one person without whom we cannot get along.”

Teri Chambers is the Graduate Sec-retary for the Economics Depart-ment. Teri has done an outstanding job assisting with many changes and improvements to our graduate pro-gram.

Michelle Huslig Lowrance is the department receptionist. Michelle has many and varied responsibilities within the department and is a great source of knowledge/expertise in many different areas.

note from the editor

Working with the Econ faculty, students and support staff to assist in publishing the first department news-letter has been a very special experience. Thank you to everyone for your contributions. My special thanks to Pam LeRow, CLAS Digital Media Services, for her pa-tient, invaluable assistance. Alums and Friends of Eco-nomics, I look forward to hearing from you. You will find me at econalums@ku.edu or hensleym@ku.edu. Martha Hensley

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 11

Alumni news

Alums and friends of Economics at KU, we want to hear from you! Please keep us updated on what is happening in your lives. We look forward to including your news and events in the next issue of The KU Economist. Send your news to: Martha Hensley, Newsletter Correspondent

events GAllery

Professors Paul Comolli and Yoshi Otani. Professor Otani returned to KU to present a seminar and renew old friendships.

Undergraduate Student Awards DinnerPatrick Ford, Professor Ronald Caldwell,Ryan Wing

Undergraduates Leah Mero and Brandon Minster

Professor Mohamed El-Hodiri was host for Graduate Student Party.

Tom Weiss, Professor Emeritus, Pat Weiss and Junko Otani at reception for the Otanis

Professors Jianbo Zhang and Joe Sicilian

Undergraduate Rachel Koch and Professor Harry Shaffer

Professors Neal Becker and David Faurot

Kelli Bird, Vincent Myers and Mark Skogland Professor Ted Juhl and undergraduate student Kelli Bird

Students at graduate party Mrs. Cornet, Professor Elizabeth Asiedu and Professor Bernard Cornet

Email Your Newseconalums@ku.eduhensleym@ku.eduSubject Line: Alumni News

Send News Onlinehttp://economics.ku.edu/newsletter/online_news_form.shtml

MailAlumni NewsDepartment of EconomicsUniversity of KansasLawrence, Kansas 66045

PAGE 12 THE KU ECONOMIST

CommenCement 2008

THE KU ECONOMIST Fall 2008

Department of EconomicsThe University of Kansas415 Snow Hall1460 Jayhawk Blvd.Lawrence, KS 66045Telephone: (785) 864-3501Fax: (785) 864-5270Email: econ@ku.edu

Graduate Students – Hooding Ceremonies – 2008

M.A. students – Serena San, Han Li, Yusufu Kamara, and Lili Chen Ph.D. Students – Hisaya Kitaoka, Victor Valcarcel, and John Leonard

Undergraduates Christian Beer, Eli Tuttle, Brian Baraban, Lea Mero and Julia Wood

Undergraduates Alena Vorushilova and Ben Merrill