Fall 2019

The KU Economist VOL 11/ ISSUE 2 FALL 2019

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Steve Hanke Reflects on Currency, Monetary Policy to Kick Off New Lecture Series

KU and the Economics Department were privileged to host another major event on October 17 when renowned economist Dr. Steve Hanke from Johns Hopkins University gave the inaugural John Ise Distinguished Lecture, a wide-ranging discussion that covered everything from the his-tory of hyperinflations to the importance of correctly mea-suring the money supply – and even a proposal to adopt a new calendar. Hanke’s appearance was arranged by Dr. William A. Barnett, KU’s Oswald Distinguished Professor of Macroeconomics, who conducted the fascinating 90-min-ute interview at the Kansas Memorial Union.

Dr. Hanke, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said that although this was his initial visit to Lawrence, he had recent-ly been in touch with KU alum and Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, who was delighted to hear of the visit and the es-tablishment of the new lecture series. Dr. Hanke also spoke fondly of his relationship with one of Kansas’ favorite sons, former US Senator Bob Dole.

Already prominent as a key advisor to US political lead-ers, Dr. Hanke’s career had entered a new phase in the early 1990s as the fall of communism and the Soviet ruble trig-gered currency crises in a number of newly independent countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He explained that he had prescribed a currency board for a number of countries, including Russia, as a hard budget constraint that would help impose fiscal discipline and prevent hyperinfla-tion.

“But the IMF was opposed to the implementation of a currency board in Russia, inexplicably arguing that the US Congress opposed the idea,” Hanke said. “So in October of

1992, I ultimately convinced Senator Dole, whom I became quite good friends with, to insert into a foreign operations bill what would become known as the Hanke Amendment, which formally proposed US funding for the Russian cur-rency board.”

His work on politically sensitive monetary issues behind the former Iron Curtain did not come without risks. On one occasion in the late 1990s he was advising Montenegro, which was still then a part of rump Yugoslavia, to replace the Yugoslav dinar in Montenegro with the German mark. An enraged Slobodan Milosevic planted a story in the press suggesting that Dr. Hanke, who had been assigned body-guards in Montenegro, was a French secret agent who con-trolled a hit team code-named “Spider” that was flooding Serbia with counterfeit Yugoslav dinars and was planning to assassinate Milosevic.

Dr. Hanke further explained that part of the story behind his visit to KU involved his reading an important 2009 NY Times piece by Dr. Barnett on the need for legislation man-dating independent audits of the Federal Reserve. In that op ed, Dr. Barnett noted that the Fed had been reporting non-

borrowed reserves as negative, which was technically im-possible, and observed that, “Such incompetent accounting would not survive an unconstrained, fully informed audit.” After seeing the article, Dr. Hanke contacted Dr. Barnett and began getting a deeper understanding about the impor-tance of accurately measuring the money supply by using more sophisticated Divisia aggregates.

“Bill and I collaborated quite a bit via email, and by the time he shared the manuscript of his book (Getting it Wrong: How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Finan-cial System, and the Economy) with me, I had become quite a devotee of Divisia. So much so that I later recommended to Larry Goodman that Bill would be the ideal person to start

Dr. Steve Hanke and Dr. William A. Barnett prepare to discuss economics and everything under the sun at the inaugural John Ise Distinguished Lecture on October 17.

PAGE 2 THE KU ECONOMIST

Graduation Ceremony CelebratesNew Group of KU Economists

The 2018-19 academic year concluded for the Econom-ics Department with the Graduation Recognition Ceremony on May 18, a formal event at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union that honored graduating seniors, masters, and doctoral students. The departmental ceremony nicely complemented the less formal University of Kansas Com-mencement held the next day at Kansas Memorial Stadium, where many students took the traditional “walk down the Hill” with heavily decorated caps and gowns.

Dr. Milena Stanislavova, Chair, said that she was espe-cially proud of the success, perseverance and creativity that characterized the Class of 2019 and solicited a special round of applause for all parents and grandparents who had been such an instrumental part of each graduate’s journey. She then introduced the 2019 Guest Speaker, entrepreneur Paul Grahovac, currently the vice president of new business de-velopment at Build SMART, a local manufacturer specializing in energy efficient modular building structures. Grahovac, who received his undergraduate degree in economics from KU in 1977 before moving on to law school, cited a famous line from The Graduate wherein a young Dustin Hoffman is advised by an elder that the future will be all about plastics.

“In that great tradition of elder advice, I am here to as-sure you we do indeed know that we know more than you know – but you won’t know that for many years,” he said.

Paul went on to offer the Class of 2019 practical advice they could utilize as they were entering the workforce, in-cluding the importance of finding good mentors at their first jobs; and of speaking up and offering their input only at the end of meetings.

“As KU economics graduates, you now know more about how businesses fit into the larger economy than many busi-ness owners,” he added. “And do not be shy about the fact that your liberal arts degree also means that you can write better than many of the technocrats you likely will encounter.”

Graduating senior Addison “Addie” Lake was then intro-duced as the 2019 Student Speaker. Addie, a Phi Beta Kappa who graduated with Departmental Honors and is now in the doctoral program at the University of California at Davis, laughed that her first goal was to try not to speak as fast as her faculty mentor, Dr. David Slusky. She said that she was lucky that her long and winding journey had involved in-teraction with many stellar professors in the Economics De-partment.

“They have all successfully integrated us into an intel-lectually exciting field,” she said, “since nearly every human interaction can be explained by economic models. At the end of the day, I have decided that economics is essentially the study of human behavior spiced up with a little calculus and linear algebra.”

Dakotah Weese, who graduated with Departmental Honors, celebrates with his mom immediately following the May 18 ceremony at the Kansas Memorial Union.

Dr. Donna Ginther, Dr. Milena Stanislavova (Chair), and Dr. Elizabeth Asiedu relaxing at a reception in Alderson Auditorium following a special ceremo-ny recognizing the Class of 2019 at the Kansas Memorial Union on May 18.

Guest Speaker Paul Grahovac encouraged Class of 2019 graduates enter-ing the job market to find good mentors. Paul received his undergraduate degree in economics and history from KU in 1977 before later receiving his law degree from KU in 1980.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 3

Returning to KU for the ceremony was longtime KU eco-nomics professor, Dr. Neal Becker, currently at the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh, who was on hand to see his son, Thomas, receive his undergraduate degree. Dr. Becker said that he felt privileged to be able to experience the ceremony in Woodruff Auditorium as a proud parent after having been seated on the stage as a faculty member for so many years. He explained that the emphasis on departmental-specific ceremonies prior to the “walk down the Hill” had been an initiative of former KU Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Jo-seph Steinmetz.

Dr. David Slusky and Student Speaker Addison Lake enjoying the recep-tion immediately following the Economics Department Graduation Rec-ognition Ceremony. Addie is now in the doctoral program at the Univer-sity of California at Davis.

Thomas Becker, Class of 2019, appears with his parents, former KU Eco-nomics Professor Neal Becker and former KU Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies Ann Cudd, during festivities at the Kansas Union on May 18.

Doctoral candidate Jessica Dutra happily reflects on her journey prior to the Economics Department Graduation Recognition Ceremony on May 18.

Following the formal recognition of 141 undergradu-ates, 15 master’s candidates, and 7 Ph.D. candidates, every-one was invited to join arms and sway one last time to the Alma Mater.

A number of students were recognized by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as candidates for graduating with distinction (upper 10 percent of class): William Cassidy, Conner Falke, Logan Hotz, Christie Ngoh, Courtney Schrater, and Henry Walter; and for graduating with highest distinc-tion (upper three percent of class): Nidhi Patel, William Per-due, Mitchell Reinig, and Jacob Schmidt. Eight students also received special Departmental Honors recognition for com-pleting their undergraduate economics degrees with a 3.5 grade point average in economics courses and 3.25 overall; and researching, writing and defending a thesis before a faculty committee: Facundo Bittar, Kin Hang Matthew Chan, Conner Falke, Logan Hotz, Addison Lake, Mitchell Reinig, Chloe Smith, and Dakotah Weese.

Jessica Dutra celebrates at a reception immediately following the 2019 Economics Department Graduation Recognition Ceremony on May 18.

PAGE 4 THE KU ECONOMIST

Department Hosts Renewable Energy/Environmental Quality Workshop

The Economics Department in May hosted a special Economics Workshop on Renewable Energy Adoption and Environmental Quality Protection at the Kansas Memorial Union. Organized by Dr. Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Dr. Dietrich Earnhart, the event featured presentations from a number of prominent economists, including Dr. Wayne Gray (Clark University); Dr. Sarah Jacobson (Williams College); Dr. Daniel Kaffine (University of Colorado); Dr. Martino Pelli (Universite de Sherbooke); Dr. Kathleen Segerson (University of Con-necticut) and Dr. Andrew Yates (University of North Caro-lina).

Dr. Milena Stanislavova, Chair, in her introductory re-marks welcoming participants to KU said that she very much supported the collaborative efforts that focused workshops encouraged and was pleased to have a number of rising young stars on campus as well as established experts. She also joked that she was happy to see that another compo-nent of previously successful workshops had been adopted – starting the event at nine in the morning instead of eight.

One fascinating paper on “Electrification and Cooking Fuel Choice in Rural India” (Dr. Martino Pelli with Ridhima Gupta) investigated the causal link between rural electri-fication efforts and the adoption of cleaner cooking fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The results seem to run counterintuitive to theory involving the energy ladder hypothesis (that increases in household income and socio-economic status will also lead to the adoption of more mod-ern fuels for cooking purposes). The authors instead found that while the poorer half of the Indian population from 2004-2011 experienced a 16 percent increase in electrifica-tion, they actually reduced LPG purchases and instead went “down” the energy ladder by increasing the use of fuelwood.

Dr. Martino said that it may be that when the poorer households received an electricity connection, it meant that the new monthly expenditure created an additional strain on their already tight budgets; and in order to enjoy the benefits of electricity, they were reducing expenses on cooking fuel. He also cited additional research finding that while having electricity does tend to increase household in-

Dr. Katheen Segerson presents on “Evaluating Volutary Environmental Programs with Spillover Effects” at the Kansas Union on May 21.

come, having a poor quality and intermittent power supply – very common in many rural areas -- tended to have a much smaller net overall increase on income than a high-quality power supply. He suggested that rural electrification was therefore perhaps not as likely to move as many households up the energy ladder in the first place as had been previ-ously believed.

Given that extensive prior research also has found that the choice of fuel for household activities, especially cook-ing, greatly impacts a number of factors influencing general well-being (including health, time use, and exposure to fi-nancial risks), Dr. Martino said that the results of his research were somewhat disturbing. He noted that 33 percent of In-dia’s poorest households own a television; and 28 percent own a radio. Given that many of these households are often choosing to collect and utilize fuelwood as an alternative to purchasing LPG in order to continue enjoying the benefits of electricity, he suggested that the government may wish to reinstitute a program it had previously phased out that helped subsidize the use of LPG.

The gathering, held from May 20-22, served as an indi-cator of KU’s growing reputation as a leader in both environ-mental and energy economics and is expected to become an ongoing or even annual event.

In This Issue

1 • Hanke Reflects on Currency, Monetary Policy

2 • Graduation Ceremony Celebrates New Economists

3 • Department Hosts Energy/ Environmental Workshop

7 • Barnett Lecture Covers Fed History, Use of Best Monetary Statistics

9 • Research Looks at College Mental Health, New Marijuana Laws

10 • Impact of UberX on Ambulance Calls Analyzed

11 • Department Hosts 10th Annual Economic Theory Workshop

12 • Student and Faculty Awards, 2019-20

15 • Ginther Named Lead Academician for Governor’s Tax Council

16 • Message from the Chair

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 5

*** ALUMNI PROFILE ***

The Honorable Arthur B. Federman

After having used his KU economics background in a variety of unique ways, Arthur Federman recently completed his long and distinguished career as a federal bankruptcy judge. Judge Federman served in the US Bankruptcy Court’s Western District of Mis-souri from 1989-2017 and since retiring has contin-

ued to give back to his profession as a part of a special pro bono volunteer attorney project.

As an undergraduate at KU, he had originally declared as a political science major before deciding to double major by adding economics.

“I was always fascinated by the way money moves, as well as the analyses as to how its movements can influence people’s lives,” he said.

Judge Federman added that his favorite economics class was Money and Banking, taught by the renowned Dr. Leland J. Pritchard.

“Dr. Pritchard was very strict and a hard grader. But I was intrigued by the eye-opening idea that banks could effec-tively create new money that had an impact on the econo-my by making loans.”

Ongoing interest in the dynamics of financial loans and debt would of course play a major role in Judge Federman’s career after he graduated from KU in 1973.

After moving on to UMKC for his law degree, he initially began his career in 1976 as a lawyer in the US Justice De-partment’s Antitrust Division.

“I found my economics training to be very helpful while I was at DOJ,” he said. “Antitrust law is essentially about analyzing markets to determine if someone has too much power.

“People may forget this now, but there was a major push under President Carter to deregulate a lot of indus-tries, including the airlines, railroads, and trucking. There had been a lot of economists brought in to help promote free-market principles and theory. When the economists were talking about price elasticity, I was one of the lawyers at DOJ who was actually able to understand what they were talking about.”

He subsequently left the DOJ in 1979 to return to the Kansas City area and go into private practice and immedi-ately began doing much of his work on bankruptcy.

Judge Art Federman retired in 2017 after 28 years on the US Bankruptcy Court.

“Congress had passed a big bankruptcy law overhaul in 1978, and it turns out that nobody in my law firm was deeply versed in the nuances of the new law – so I threw myself into learning it and sort of became the go-to bankruptcy expert by default,” he said.

He said that the farm crisis of the early 1980s under-scored for him how tenuous people’s financial lives can be in a field like agriculture – which was then dealing with grain embargoes, volatile weather conditions, and extremely high interest rates.

After a decade in private practice, a number of friends and colleagues began encouraging him to apply for a seat on the federal bankruptcy court. The US Circuit Courts of Appeal appoint bankruptcy judges for 14-year terms, and Federman was approved by the 8th Circuit Court (St Louis) for the first of his two terms in 1989.

Judge Federman presided over thousands of bankrupt-cy cases over the next 28 years, including the three major types: Chapter 7 (complete liquidation for companies or in-dividuals), Chapter 11 (company reorganization), and Chap-ter 13 (reorganization for individuals).

“I very much enjoyed my time on the bankruptcy bench, since judges do have a fair amount of discretion to do the right thing in situations when the law is not always entirely clear,” Judge Federman said. “But after 2005 when Congress passed restructuring provisions intended to make it more difficult for consumers to file for bankruptcy and discharge debt, that did remove some of the discretion. My impres-sion was that the 2005 legislation was driven by lobbyists for credit card and car finance companies. Some of the law changes made it more cumbersome and costly to file in the first place and also set up a number of hoops people had to jump through before any debt could be discharged, includ-ing certain mandatory classes that can be very expensive.”

Judge Federman said that a high percentage of indi-vidual bankruptcy cases involve health expenditure debts. He said that he had watched with interest the debates in Kansas and other states about whether to expand Medicaid to extend health coverage to additional people who could not otherwise afford it.

“I definitely think when policymakers are considering the cost/benefit analysis, they should factor in the amount of consumer bankruptcies that can be prevented as a result of Medicaid expansion,” he said. “After people have incurred a huge medical debt they cannot pay, they often end up digging themselves a deeper hole by taking on additional credit card debt. It’s a vicious cycle that often leads them to bankruptcy court.”

Judge Federman also observed the extent to which stu-dent loan debt has skyrocketed in recent years. He explained that student loan debt was very difficult to discharge unless “undue hardship” could be demonstrated, and the courts generally have interpreted that to mean that individuals must be disabled and unable to work in order to qualify for any dis-charge. He added that public service student loan repayment

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PAGE 6 THE KU ECONOMIST

programs in certain fields that required 10 years of service were becoming less attractive amid ongoing confusion and concerns about debts ultimately not being discharged not-withstanding the fact that some people may have foregone higher private sector salaries for nearly a decade.

He said that he and his contemporaries at KU in the ear-ly 1970s did not at that time realize how blessed they were in terms of the relatively low higher education costs.

Like thousands of other KU students, he has many fond memories of his time on campus and of attending basket-ball games at Allen Fieldhouse during his days as an under-graduate.

During his days in the Economics Department – which was at that time located in Summerfield Hall – Judge Feder-man did have one class he remembers with future Colom-bian President and Nobel Laureate Juan Manuel Santos.

“It was a senior seminar on urban planning economics, and I distinctly remember Santos being there because he was so much further ahead of all the rest of us in terms of grasping a lot of the public policy implications,” he laughed.

The volunteer attorney project the former judge has now undertaken since his formal retirement from the bench in 2017 has largely involved helping people navigate im-migration law. He explained that both of his parents were Holocaust survivors who were able to come to America only as a result of a special action President Truman took after World War II extending the ability to immigrate to 125,000 displaced persons.

“So immigration law has always been a passion of mine that I was never really able to pursue until now,” he said. “But now I am able to help refugees and others in their efforts to obtain a green card or become citizens.”

New Health Economics Conference Bringing Together Top Researchers, Stakeholders

KU has announced Dr. David Slusky will be hosting the inaugural Kansas Health Economics Conference (KHEC) on March 23 at the Adams Alumni Center. That event, which will be funded in part by a 3-year National Science Founda-tion grant he obtained, takes on increasing importance in the wake of accelerating public policy discussions about the health care industry as well as the overall well-being of the population, especially in rural areas.

The idea of the one-day conference is to maximize the synergy of getting a number of economists, researchers, students and members of the health economics community together in the same place for extended discussions and brainstorming.

“We have the necessary elements across the state and the Kansas City metro region to develop a real community of health economists,” Dr. Slusky told KU News in September after receiving the NSF grant. “The idea here is to have some of the narrow academic conversations; but we also want part of the meeting to be about what else can we do? How can we coordinate better? And how can we pull our expertise and resources to better be part of the broader community?”

Dr. Slusky, a specialist in health and labor economics, focuses much of his research on health outcomes and most recently published an analysis of the impact of ride-sharing services on ambulance usage in certain cities (see page 10).

In addition to the KHEC, the NSF grant also will enable KU to host the 2021 Midwest Health Economics Conference. That broader regional event, which has been hosted previ-ously by the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Indiana University, the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota, will now be coming to KU for the first time.

The grant will be earmarked largely towards funding ex-penses of conference participants at both events.

“I wanted to have funds available for graduate students to come – since they don’t often have a lot of their own trav-el funding – and also for speakers from schools that don’t have large endowments or other kinds of travel funds,” Dr. Slusky added. “It’s kind of a need-based model, which I’ve not seen so much in my profession.”

KU Econ Grad Program Named Top 50

The KU Economics Department received another honor last spring when the US News & World Report “Best Graduate Schools” rankings for 2020 named KU’s graduate programs in economics as being in the top 50 nationally among pub-lic universities. A total of 48 KU graduate programs were named in the publication’s top 50, more than all other Kan-sas universities and colleges combined.

“We look to rankings as one way to track our progress, and these US News rankings highlight the many different ways we contribute to the state and region,” said Chancel-lor Douglas A. Girod. “As a leading research university, our graduate programs are an important part of who we are. We remain focused on our broader mission and goals to help elevate these efforts across our university.”

Additional Faculty Information Information on faculty, their areas of research interest, and recent activities and publications may be found at http://economics.ku.edu/faculty.

Additional information on current working papers also is available at http://econpapers.repec.org/paper kanwpaper/.

Federman Profile.......... (continued from page 5)

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 7

Barnett Lecture Covers History of Fed and Ongoing Battle Over Use of Best Monetary Statistics

A special keynote lecture at the Missouri Valley Econom-ic Association Conference in Kansas City recently gave KU’s own Dr. William A. Barnett, the Oswald Distinguished Profes-sor of Macroeconomics, the latest chance to unveil his land-mark research as to how the prior use of faulty monetary statistics helped undermine the economy, the subject of Getting it Wrong: How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Financial System, and the Economy (MIT Press), his award-winning 2012 book.

Dr. Barnett outlined the thesis of the book and his efforts to convince the nation’s central bank to abandon its wide-spread use of simple-sum aggregate measures of the money supply in favor of more sophisticated (Divisia) aggregates – and how the Federal Reserve’s failure to adhere to that advice was a major contributing factor behind the Great Recession (and continues to this day to provide misleading information about the economy as it relates to monetary policy).

In the run up to the Great Recession, the growing complexity of financial instruments had made traditional simple-sum monetary aggregation formulas obsolete. The lack of public availability of best-practice data prevented households, firms, and the public sector from correctly as-sessing the accelerating systemic risk. Deregulation and its resulting financial innovations should have been paralleled by the availability of correspondingly higher-quality data from the Federal Reserve. Instead the decreasing availability of relevant financial market data from the Fed and the low quality of much of those data during a period of rapid finan-cial innovation in private markets created a perfect storm, effectively triggering the global financial crisis – a conse-quence of what is now known throughout the economics profession as “the Barnett Critique.”

Recognized internationally as the leading advocate for the increased use of monetary aggregation and index-num-ber theory in economic analysis, Dr. Barnett (founder and First President of the Society for Economic Measurement; and currently serving as Director of the Center for Finan-cial Stability in New York City and Director of the Institute for Nonlinear Dynamical Inference in Moscow) focused his MVEA lecture on those parts of the book containing some of the more amusing anecdotes and experiences he has had across multiple decades in dealing with a well-known cast of characters inside and outside of the economics profession.

Working in the Special Studies Section at the Fed dur-ing much of the 1970s and early 1980s during a time of tre-mendous economic upheaval (while simple-sum aggregate money measures unfortunately were even more widely em-braced then they are today), he had a front row seat for the monetary policies being implemented by Paul Volcker and others. Following the end of the Monetarist Experiment (No-vember 1979 – November 1982) and the unintended reces-sion of the early 80s that it had triggered, Milton Friedman published an article in Newsweek complaining of a “mon-etary explosion” that was supposedly going to lead to ex-treme inflation followed by an overreaction by the Fed that would subsequently cause yet another recession. But the very same day the Friedman piece was released (Septem-ber 26, 1983), Forbes published an interview with Dr. Bar-nett noting that people had been panicking unnecessarily about money supply growth, given that Divisia aggregates were rising at a rate similar to the previous year’s; and that the apparent “explosion” that Friedman and others were so concerned about should instead “be viewed as a statistical blip.” The explosion of inflation and subsequent recession predicted by Friedman did not occur, as correctly predicted by Dr. Barnett.

A second story also highlights the extent to which resis-tance to the use of Divisia aggregates within the Fed has re-mained a problem for many decades. Jerry Enzler, a former Fed economist in charge of the Board’s quarterly econo-metric policy model during the 1970s, had been impressed enough with some of Barnett’s earliest research that he had quietly begun using a Divisia M2 measure as an alternative to the Board’s “official” simple-sum M2 measure within the model. Policy simulations developed by the Board’s model for use throughout the Fed had apparently been using the Divisia approach for several years with knowledge of that fact only by Jerry Enzler – and things might have stayed that way much longer but for an unfortunate accident. Unlike

Dr. William A. Barnett discusses monetary policy in Kansas City at the annual Missouri Valley Economic Association Conference in October.

“The public didn’t have enough good information and data from the Federal Reserve to understand that the risk of recession still existed; and that they should not have been taking increased personal risk under the incorrect assumption that the Fed had figured out how to eliminate the business cycle.” – Dr. William Barnett in Power Lunch radio interview on causes of the Great Recession

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PAGE 8 THE KU ECONOMIST

most Fed economists, Enzler had a lock on his office because of his access to certain international data that had been col-lected by the CIA. After he was in a serious car accident, one of his colleagues was given the key to his office and discov-ered what had transpired and switched back to using the official simple-sum M2 data.

In his current role at CFS, Dr. Barnett continues to be a staunch advocate for increasing the use of the more sophisti-cated aggregates by central banks, as well as expanding the public availability of such information. CFS, which receives most of its funding through charitable contributions, in fact combines certain central bank releases with other data from academic and private sources to provide links to Divi-sia monetary aggregates and related research for more than 40 countries throughout the world, along with the United States Divisia monetary aggregates which the CFS itself pro-duces and provides to the public as a free public service.

He added, with a laugh from the audience, that he is still more than a little disappointed that the only two central banks in the world not making adequate data available on bank deposit interest rates are the Fed (in the US) and the Central Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

Dr. Barnett concluded his presentation at the October 11 MVEA conference by reflecting that one of the questions he had been asked the most over the years by younger faculty members and graduate students was what, if any-thing, all great economists had in common. After reflecting on that and observing that there are any number of distin-guished economists who have widely differing approaches in methodologies and outlooks, he had decided one com-mon thread that appears to link a very high number of them in the book of interviews he coedited with Nobel Laureate Paul Samuleson, Inside the Economist’s Mind, appears to be their love of fishing.

up the Center for Finan-cial Stability.”

During the discus-sion, Dr. Hanke said he thought that Donald Trump was off base in la-beling China as a curren-cy manipulator respon-sible for the US trade deficit.

“I completely dis-agree with the mercan-tilist perspective being taken by the president. This is all very similar to

what was going on during the Reagan administration in the early 1980s when Japan was then the supposed currency manipulator causing our trade deficits.”

A longtime Forbes contributor, Dr. Hanke also discussed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek column he had written in May suggesting that if Trump issued an executive order adopting a permanent calendar proposal authored by Hanke and an-other one of his Johns Hopkins colleagues, Richard Henry, a professor of physics, the president could go down in history as “America’s Caesar” – at least in so far as having success-fully revised the calendar.

The Ise Lecture was made possible through the gener-osity of Courtney “Corky” and Phyllis Nason along with Rich and Judy Billings to honor John Ise, a longtime KU faculty member and former chair of the Economics Department.

Current Chair Dr. Milena Stanislavova said that she was excited about the establishment of the Ise Lecture on an on-going basis and pointed to the Hanke event as well as an appearance last March by former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as indicative of KU’s growing reputation as a top lecture “destination” for some of the world’s most promi-nent economists.

Hanke Visits KU.......... (continued from page 1)

Renowned economist Dr. Steve Hanke

Dr. Barnett’s important 2012 book

won the American Publishers Award

for Professional and Scholarly Excellence

(PROSE)

KU students Ruoning Han, Ahadul Kabir Muyeed, Gregory Leung, and Qing Han presented research in March at the 83rd Annual Midwest Economics Association meeting in St. Louis.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 9

Ries Receives Leffel Concerned Student Award

Prior to his gradua-tion in May with his un-dergraduate degree in economics, outgoing stu-dent body president Noah Ries was named one of 12 special University Award winners in acknowledg-ment of outstanding com-

munity engagement, leadership and academics. Noah, who also minored in business, was named one of

three recipients of the prestigious Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award. Established in 1973, the Leffel Award is giv-en each year to students who have demonstrated concern for furthering the ideals of the university and higher educa-tion; and who have been shown to have made a significant institutional difference for KU students.

During his 2018-19 tenure as president (and previously as a student senator), Noah worked to develop centralized online reporting software for KU; implement anonymous group therapy software for survivors of interpersonal vio-lence; increase funding for mental health; establish an on-campus food pantry; expand textbook affordability; bring students free New York Times subscriptions; and abolish parking tickets in student lots during finals weeks. He also worked as part of advocacy teams in both Topeka and Wash-ington, D.C. to push for increased higher education funding.

He served during the previous academic year as a mem-ber of the board of directors for the Kansas Memorial Union Corporation and the Kansas Athletics Board of Directors. He had previously held executive roles during his sophomore and junior years in the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

"I'm so blessed to have been given the opportunity to learn and grow, both in and out of the classroom, at such a wonderful institution," Ries said. "The administrators, fac-ulty, staff and fellow students I worked with in my time here have taught me so much, and I will take many of these les-sons and values with me as I go on in my life.”

A special reception in honor of Noah and his fellow Uni-versity Award recipients was held on campus May 18.

Noah Ries

Research Looks at College Students’ Mental Health in Wake of New Marijuana Laws

The extent to which rapidly changing state marijuana laws in recent years may have impacted the mental health of college students is being explored by doctoral candidate Gregory Leung, who presented his latest research at a spe-cial departmental seminar at Snow Hall on October 2.

He explained that with 33 states and the District of Co-lumbia now having passed medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and 10 states and D.C. having approved recreational mari-juana laws (RMLs) – many in just the last five years – a great deal of analysis remains to be done on the impact of the leg-islation. Previous economics research has focused on issues like taxation and the spillover effect of crime on surround-ing states.

Greg said that his attempt to look at the impact on the mental health of college students represented a somewhat unique effort to bridge economics literature with a number of psychology and medical journals.

Using a data set involving more than 200,000 student observations from across all states during the 2009-17 ac-ademic years and employing a difference-in-differences methodology, he has already developed a number of inter-esting findings.

He said given that medical literature suggests medical marijuana can reduce anxiety, depression, anger and panic, it may not be surprising that there appears to be a 4.4 percent decrease in severe depression reported by college students in MML states. Moreover, an apparent 4 percent decrease in illegal marijuana consumption by students in states immedi-ately after medical legalization may indicate that a significant degree of illegal self-medication had been occurring.

But he added that there are a number of other unin-tended consequences on public health in general as well as the mental health of college students that remain to be studied, given that increased legal access to marijuana af-fects lifestyles and behaviors in any number of ways.

Greg, who served during the 2018-19 academic year as a doctoral research fellow at KU’s Institute for Policy & Social Research, said that his analysis remains a work in progress and that he hopes to include it as part of his dissertation. He presented an earlier version of the project in June at a national health conference in Washington, DC.

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 KU Economist.

Email Your Newsecon@ku.eduSubject Line: Alumni News

MailAlumni NewsDepartment of Economics415 Snow HallUniversity of KansasLawrence, Kansas 66045

PAGE 10 THE KU ECONOMIST

Impact of UberX on Ambulance Calls Analyzed in Fascinating New Study

Fascinating research published over the sum-mer by KU’s own Dr. David Slusky (with Dr. Leon Mos-katel, a Resident Physician at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego) unveiled the impact that the ride shar-

ing service, UberX, has had on ambulance volumes in cities where patients previously had few other options to get to hospital emergency rooms (“Did UberX Reduce Ambulance Volumes?”; Moskatel and Slusky in Health Economics).

The authors note that by May 2017, Uber had reached 5 billion rides, 76 countries, and over 450 cities. Previous re-search has shown that its rapid introduction and expansion had varying effects on communities, not the least of which included major disruptions in local taxi industries (as well as a reduction in drunk driving arrests and fatalities). But any specific impact on existing medical transportation and care models, including EMS, had not been identified.

The paper argues that since the costs of ambulance services are often very high and not well-covered by many forms of insurance; and that since individuals do not al-ways need a mobile emergency room to get to a hospital quickly and safely, it would seem reasonable to explore the impact on ambulance volume in selected areas before and after Uber became so widely available. (Using a ride-sharing service as an alternative also offers more flexibility because of the extent to which many ambulances will take patients only to the nearest hospital.) The research is believed to be the first of its kind in attempting to look at this particular substitution effect.

Utilizing ambulance response data from over 700 cities, the study found that after introduction of the ride-sharing service, there were at least 1.2 fewer ambulance trips per thousand residents per quarter (a 7% drop), a finding that is robust to numerous specifications.

In terms of public policy implications, the article con-cludes by pointing out that cities have already begun ac-knowledging the impact and begun openly discussing how the ride-sharing services can be more formally integrated into existing EMS frameworks.

“Given the ubiquity of Uber and now Lyft, finding a bal-ance between safety and efficiency will be the next steps going forward as ride‐sharing services are further integrated into the health‐care infrastructure,” the research observes. “As the services mature, guidelines and best practices will need to be developed to ensure that the proper cohort uti-lizes traditional ambulances whereas also acknowledging

that for many situations, a simpler mode of transport may be sufficient.”

Dr. Slusky, who specializes in health and labor econom-ics, is an Associate Professor as well as an Associate Chair and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Depart-ment of Economics at KU. He was recently named a Research Fellow by the prestigious IZA Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn, Germany. His unique and growing expertise on the costs of EMS services led to a major NPR radio interview in August on WNYC’s The Takeaway (https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/ambulance-bills-high-and-unexpected). During that interview, he explained that there also can be a legal or even civil rights angle behind the growing propensity of people to use ride-sharing, given that police in many cities are asked to accompany ambulances on certain 911 calls (a presence not always welcomed by patients or their families).

Dr. David Slusky

*** Alumni Profile ***

Dustin Santos Barahona, a former Fulbright Scholar from Honduras who received his master’s degree in economics from KU in 2010, is currently in charge of the regulatory and research division at the Honduran National Banking Com-mission. Until 2018 he had worked as head of economic regulation for the Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Conatel Honduras), the governmental entity responsible for regulating and coordinating the nation’s telecommunica-tions sector. He has also served as a part time professor in the economics department at the National University of Hondu-ras since 2011. He remains interested in the digital economy, behavioral economics and economic development.

Dustin said that he cherishes many memories of his days at KU, including his industrial organization economics cours-es taught by former Professor Gautam Bhattacharya. He added that he very much appreciated the rich multi-cultural environment at KU when he got to know fellow students and faculty from all over the world; and that he particularly en-joyed experiencing all four seasons of the year in Lawrence, Kansas.

Dustin Santos Barahona currently runs a division of the Honduran National Banking Commission and teaches at the National University of Honduras.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 11

*** Alumni Profile ***

A prominent KU alum and leading forensic economist, Dr. Logan Kelly, current-ly serves as Department of Economics Chair at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Dr. Kelly, now a tenured full professor who was named chair in 2017, received his PhD from KU in 2007 while specializing in macroeconomics and applied econo-metrics.

During his tenure as chair at UWRF, he has developed a number of courses, including managerial economics; managerial statistics; and a special economet-rics course that now serves as a writing-intensive capstone for the undergraduate economics program.

Recent publications have included “What Can We Learn from Country-Level Li-quidity in the EMU?” (with Makram El-Shagi) in the Journal of Financial Stability; and “A Model of Monetary Policy Shocks for Financial Crises and Normal Conditions” (with John Keating, A. Lee Smith, and Victor Valcarel) in the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Dr. Kelly notes that his ongoing research agenda is epitomized by the latter article, which demonstrates that official monetary data released by the Federal Re-serve leads to many of the famous puzzles found in empirical monetary literature, while better data reduces or even eliminates those puzzles.

“I am currently applying the tools developed for the analysis of monetary policy to climate change. My climate change research continues my general interest in research that leads to better policy,” he added.

In addition to his career at UWRF, Dr. Kelly has emerged nationally as a leading forensic economist with expertise in calculating economic damages to dairy farms from any number of causes, including toxic feed, malfunctioning milking equipment, and stray voltage. He has testified or been deposed as an expert witness in at least five separate court cases since 2017.

Logan Kelly

Department Hosts Prestigious 10th Annual Economic Theory Workshop

The Economics Department continued to enhance its international reputation by hosting the annual Kansas Workshop on Economic Theory in May. That workshop, which was organized by Associate Chair Dr. Tarun Sabarwal and held at the Kansas Memorial Union, allowed top researchers and theoreticians from around the country and world to convene and present their latest findings while interacting with one another to provide additional constructive input.

KU Provost Carl Lejuez said that he was pleased to be on hand at the tenth KWET and credited Dr. Sabarwal as well as current Chair Dr. Milena Stanislavova and former Chair Dr. Joe Sicilian with developing and expanding the event.

“I was very excited when I met with Tarun to go over this year’s content, since I have always been very interested in behavioral economics and game theory,” Dr. Lejuez said. “I might add that as an AAU institution, KU takes its research role seriously. And events like this allow a deeper focus on research and theory. I am pleased to see that the agenda includes a good mix of senior faculty as well as rising starts in academia. This kind of balance and collaboration helps bridge the generational gap that avoids the discontinuity that is unfortunately becoming more pronounced in some fields.”

One paper presented by Dr. John Zhu from the University of Pennsylvania (“Better Monitoring … Worse Productivity?") studies how changes to the information content of private monitoring in a moral hazard setting impacts productivity and surplus. He showed that improving the information con-tent of monitoring by introducing new information that is week in statistical power but strong in incentive power can backfire, leading to a decline in both productivity and sur-plus. He said that the results provide a good argument for a certain level of worker privacy and an arm’s-length manage-ment style in the workplace.

Provost Carl Lejuez makes opening remarks at the Kansas Workshop on Economic Theory in May.

PAGE 12 THE KU ECONOMIST

Economics Department Student and Faculty Awards, 2019–20

Under an initiative spearheaded in recent years by Dr. Milena Stanislavova, Chair, in partnership with the KU En-dowment Association, the Economics Department has sig-nificantly expanded its annual awards for both students and faculty. The 2019-20 awards were presented at a special banquet held April 11 at the Oread Hotel.

A number of faculty, donors and alumni kicked off the event by joining with Dr. Stanislavova in congratulating the student winners, all of whom are required to have an excep-tional academic record as a prerequisite for being consid-ered for the honors. The Department was honored to have prominent alumni donor Corky Nason on hand to help an-nounce many of the awards and scholarships.

The undergraduate awards are granted each year to graduating seniors, while the scholarships help fund the fi-nal year of studies for outstanding juniors. In announcing the awards, Dr. Dietrich Earnhart began by outlining the his-tory and accomplishments of the former faculty luminaries for whom the awards are named. Associate Chair and Direc-tor of Graduate Studies Dr. Tarun Sabarwal said that gradu-ate student awards and scholarships had been enhanced in recent years as a result of the generosity of donors like Corina Scoggins. * The Arthur J. Boynton Memorial Awards and Scholarships were established by friends, former students and associatesafter Professor Boynton’s death in 1928. A longtime memberof the Economics Department, Professor Boynton gradu-ated from Harvard in 1903 and came to KU, where he servedas head of the department from 1915 to 1924. An asset to the entire Lawrence community, he served on the KU Ath-letic Board and the Lawrence School Board. An avid golfer and one of the founders of the Oread Golf Club in 1908, Pro-fessor Boynton built a nine-hole golf course between Mis-sissippi Street and Potter Lake. He also was a member of theBeloit College Glee Club and the Harvard Double Quartet. When his wife, Flora Boynton, died in 1978, most of her es-tate was added to the fund.

* The Domenico Gagliardo Award was established after Ga-gliardo’s death in 1955 to honor his teaching, scholarship and impressive accomplishments in scholarship and public ser-vice. He joined the Economics Department faculty in 1923. Professor Gagliardo, born in Frontenac, Kansas in 1895, be-gan working in coal mines in Crawford County as a seventh-grader and did not start high school until age 20. After serv-ing in the Navy in World War I, he came to KU originally in 1920, received a degree in just three years, and subsequently obtained his Master’s degree from Harvard in 1924 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1931. He later received the Legion of Merit and the Army Commendation Ribbon for again serving his country in WorldWar II. He was renowned for his scholarship and expertise in labor economics.

* The Leland J. Pritchard and Helen von Behren Memorial Scholarship was established in honor of longtime Professor Pritchard in recognition of his impact both inside and out-side of academia. During the 1930s and 1940s, he served the nation as part of the Federal Emergency Relief and Works Projects Administrations, as well as the War Labor Board. An authority on finance and economic statistics, Dr. Pritchard joined the Economics Department in 1942 and served in a number of capacities over 37 years, including a stint as Chairfrom 1955-62.

* The R.S. Howey Award, established upon the retirement ofthe late Richard S. Howey, currently recognizes outstanding performance on Ph.D. qualifying exams. He received a B.S. from Harvard in 1926, an M.A. from Southern California in 1929, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1955. He joined the KU faculty in 1929, taught for 44 years, and subse-quently helped establish the notable Howey Economic His-tory Collection of literature at Spencer Research Library. TheHowey Collection, considered one of two benchmark collec-tions in the world alongside the Kress holdings at Harvard University, now includes over 15,000 items. Exceedingly rare books, pamphlets and journals from most major European countries from 1700 through the 1850s form the backbone of this one-of-a-kind archival resource. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is available in 53 editions and translations. Even after he became professor emeritus in 1973, Dr. Howey continued to serve the university in a variety of capacities and conduct research in economic history. Noted for his sar-torial splendor, his students gave him a Brooks Brothers suitupon his retirement.

* The Carol Drever Pimental Scholarships and Awards, estab-lished in 2017 as a result of her generosity, is part of a major new effort to diversify the economics program at KU with a special emphasis on assisting students who participate in study abroad programs. Long before she graduated in the Class of 1962, Carol’s remarkable journey started with a rural upbringing in northeast Kansas (Marshall County). Even as a

Logan Stuart receives the John Ise Award from donor Corky Nason, whose generosity has significantly enhanced that honor named for his former professor.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 13

young girl, she had a great deal of interest in international af-fairs, sparked by her pen pal relationship with several friends from abroad. During her junior year at KU, she was able to study abroad at the University of Copenhagen, which turned out to be a transformative experience that helped shape the balance of her remarkable career. After graduating from KU, Carol went on to get her master’s degree in international business and finance from George Washington University. Her career included stints with the US-Japan Trade Council, the US Treasury Department, and the World Bank – all of which enabled her to continue to travel extensively abroad while being based primarily in the Washington, DC area. Her motivation in establishing the permanently endowed fund was to provide scholarships enabling the next generation of economics students to experience multi-cultural interna-tional programs that will make them more marketable. For the immediate future, the gift provides an ongoing formal funding mechanism for a special agreement established be-tween KU and the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne ar-ranged through Dr. Bernard Cornet. Dr. Cornet, the Oswald Distinguished Professor of Microeconomics at KU, initiated that agreement some years ago and has served as a facilita-tor as result of his extensive contacts in Paris. Carol’s intent was for the fund to also allow the Department to make ad-ditional overtures to other institutions and countries.

* The John Ise Award was originally funded from sales of Ise’sbook, 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. One of eleven children, he obtained degrees from KU in Fine Arts (1908), Liberal Arts and Sciences (1910), and Law (1911) before getting advanced degrees at Harvard. The au-thor of a total of eight books, he served as president of the American Economics Association and on the editorial board of the American Economic Review. His great generosity is re-flected not only in numerous large gifts that helped aid gen-

erations of KU students but also in helping the city of Law-rence build and support its first humane animal shelter. As part of a nationwide effort to revitalize this particular honor led by the generosity of Corky and Phyllis Nason, the Ise was enhanced significantly within the last two years. Corky, who graduated from KU in 1956 with a BA in economics and a minor in chemistry, knew Dr. Ise personally and worked with the Economics Department and KU Endowment to launch this important enhancement initiative.

* Charles W. Oswald Summer Scholarships were establishedfrom a portion of the very generous gifts that Charles Os-wald made to KU and the Economics Department. A native of Hutchinson, Kansas, Mr. Oswald entered the US Marine Corps in 1946 after graduating high school. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from KU in 1951 and moved on to Harvard Business School for his MBA in 1953. From 1953 to 1970, he rose through Jostens Corporation and became president before leaving to become chairman and CEO at National Computer Systems from 1970 until his retirement in 1994. Prior to his death in 2014, he served as Chair of Rotherwood Ventures, a company he founded and named after the farm he grew up on. An enthusiastic inves-tor and entrepreneur, Mr. Oswald also was very active as a civic and social philanthropist, supporting the Minnesota Arboretum, the Mayo Clinic and numerous other institu-tions. A new residence hall recently opened on Daisy Hill in 2015 is named Charles W. Oswald Hall in acknowledgment of his decades of service and generosity. He was named a 2005-06 recipient of the College of Liberal Arts and Scienc-es Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the College.

* The Charles W. Oswald Outstanding Teaching Award was granted for the first time in 2018 to further acknowledge theextent to which his contributions have enhanced the Eco-nomics Department’s international reputation. The Depart-ment’s undergraduate program was named the “Charles W. Oswald Program in Economics” after Mr. Oswald’s original

Camila Ordonez is presented with a Carol Drever Pimental Award from Dr. Bernard Cornet, who was instrumental in working with the late donor and KUEA in establishing the Award.

Ruoning Han receives the Corina Scoggins Outstanding Female in Financial Economics Award from Dr. Tarun Sabarwal on April 11.

PAGE 14 THE KU ECONOMIST

Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies Dr. Tarun Sabarwal presents Luis Molinas with a Shu Wu Scholarship in honor of the late KU professor.

2019-20 Awards and Scholarships

*** UNDERGRADUATE ***John Ise Award

Logan Stuart

Domenico Gagliardo AwardLogan Hotz

Arthur J. Boynton Scholarships Sylvia Bryan Jackson Mullen Dominick Decker Zachary Pascalar Alex Feyerherm Mary Kate Rielley John Johnston John Rosher Chessa McCalla Kyle Stutzman

Arthur J. Boynton AwardsFacundo Bittar ArrellagaKin Hang Matthew Chan

Conner FalkeAddison LakeChloe Smith

Dakotah Weese

Leland J. Pritchard and Helen von BehrenMemorial Scholarships

John ByrneGrant Daily

Brian JensenAlden VogelDaniel Webb

Carol Drever Pimental AwardCamila Ordonez

*** GRADUATE ***

Shu Wu ScholarshipAhadul Kabir Muyeed

Luis Molinas

Richard S. Howey AwardsVan Nguyen (Microeconomics Qualifying Exam)Seoyeon Jo (Macroeconomics Qualifying Exam)

Carol Drever Pimental AwardLuis Molinas

Charles Oswald Summer ScholarshipAryaman Bhatnagar

Jingwei JinAhad Zaman Khan

Fangli LiaoUttiya Paul

Corina Scoggins Outstanding Female inFinancial Economics Award

Ruoning Han

Learned ScholarshipSifat Adiya

Gregory LeungZeyan Shen

*** FACULTY ***

Oswald Outstanding Teaching AwardShigeru Iwata

historic gift to the university in 2001. The Outstanding Teach-ing Award honors a current faculty member and provides an ongoing legacy recognizing the extent to which his support has established multiple professorships and countless travel and research opportunities for faculty and students alike.

* The Corina Scoggins Outstanding Female in Financial Eco-nomics Award recently was established by a prominent KU alumnus, Corina D. Scoggins, who, along with her husband, Willie, created a new fund to provide an annual award to a top performing female economics student – graduate or undergraduate – who is pursuing an internship or employ-ment in the investment industry. Corina, who received her undergraduate degree in economics and French from KU in 1988 after being named a 1987 Phi Beta Kappa inductee, cites her fond memories of KU in general and in the Econom-ics Department in particular as an important part in her de-cision to give back in such a significant way in establishing the Scoggins Award. Corina’s career, which progressed over a quarter century in investment research and management,started with her first position as a sales and research assis-tant at George K. Baum and Company and concluded with her job as Vice President in Equity Research at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas when she retired in 2017.

* The Learned Scholarship was awarded to three economics graduate students for the first time this year thanks to the generosity of John A. Creighton, who earned his B.A. in eco-nomics and B.S in business administration from KU in 1988.

* The Shu Wu Scholarship was established in 2019 in memo-ry of Professor Wu, who dedicated his life to macroeconom-ics and helping his students succeed. During his 18 years of service at KU, Dr. Wu was most remembered as a deeply compassionate and loyal man, profoundly interested in the development of others before himself and as a very intellec-tual, yet humble person. This scholarship, funded by dona-tions from his colleagues and friends, honors Dr. Wu’s com-mitment to advancing graduate student research.

THE KU ECONOMIST PAGE 15

Ginther Named Lead Academician for Governor’s Tax Council

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly announced over the summer that Dr. Donna Gin-ther would be serving as the lead academician for the new-ly formed Governor’s Council on Tax Reform that has been empaneled to conduct a com-prehensive overview of the state and local tax system.

The bi-partisan council will meet throughout the bal-ance of 2019 and 2020 and make specific statutory recom-mendations to policymakers with an eye towards making improvements based on the guiding principles of adequacy, equity and stability. Janis Lee (D), a former state senator and subsequent member of the Kansas Court of Tax Appeals; and Steve Morris (R), a former Kansas Senate President, are serving as co-chairs.

Governor Kelly said that Dr. Ginther’s extensive back-ground in public policy economics and new role as Direc-tor of the Institute for Policy & Social Research made her “uniquely qualified” to help lead the academic analysis needed for the study. Donna announced that Dr. Tami Gur-ley-Calvez, an acknowledged expert on tax policy, and Pat Oslund, longtime research associate at KU’s IPSR, would be joining her research team.

At the initial meeting in late September, Governor Kelly personally encouraged the council to consider recommen-dations designed to improve the overall progressivity of the state and local tax structure.

Dr. Ginther said that her research team would be work-ing with the Kansas Department of Revenue to develop a set of hypothetical taxpayers to help evaluate the implica-tions of various sales, income and property tax proposals. She also outlined demographic and economic challenges facing the state and reviewed academic literature on the impact of major changes in state tax policy starting in 2012.

Kansas made national headlines in recent years in the wake of a number of dramatic changes in tax law initiated in 2012 as part of a self-described “real live experiment” for the state. Grappling with the consequences, lawmakers were forced to enact several back-filling tax hikes and a number of budget cuts and fund sweeps before finally overriding a gubernatorial veto in 2017 and concluding that the experi-ment had not turned out the way its original proponents had envisioned. Public perception about the turmoil and the state’s fiscal health likely factored heavily into electoral results in both 2016 and 2018.

“While Kansas continues to recover from the tax experi-ment of the prior administration, there’s a need for tax re-form designed with adequacy, equity and stability in mind,” Governor Kelly said. She added that she expected the coun-cil to “deliver sound strategies and reforms that reflect my desire to keep the state tax burden as low as possible, ben-efiting all Kansans.”

An initial set of recommendations is expected to be made in December of 2019 and forwarded to the 2020 Kan-sas Legislature. The council will continue to monitor the overall budget situation and receive additional research from Dr. Ginther and state officials throughout 2020 and make its final report next fall.

Dr. Donna Ginther

Ginther Awarded NSF Grant to Study Impact of Higher Ed Budget Cuts

KU announced over the summer that the National Science Foundation had awarded a special grant to Dr. Donna Gin-ther to study the impact of higher education budget cuts on research outputs. The NSF grant for $236,790 will allow Dr. Ginther, who serves as interim Director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research as well as a professor of economics, to collaborate with Dr. Joshua Rosenbloom from Iowa State University on their joint project (“The Effects of State Disin-vestment in Higher Education on Research Quality and Returns to Scale in Science Funding”).

Expanding on their previous work on the effects federal funding has on publications and patents in the chemical sciences, the two economists will be utilizing a new data source extending that analysis to more disciplines, including biomedical sciences and economics. The study will specifically address the impact of state budget cuts on research pro-ductivity and federal funding of departments and universities.

“We will be able to have a better understanding of the long-term consequences of cuts to public higher education institutions in terms of federal research funding, research productivity and innovation,” Dr. Ginther told KU News.

PAGE 16 THE KU ECONOMIST

newly established and very successful Renewable Ener-gy and Environmental Quality Workshop (page 4). And we will now be hosting a new Health Economics Confer-ence, just announced for March 2020 (page 6). All of this activity recognizes the expertise and research record of our faculty and supports the professional development of our graduate and undergraduate students. The sup-port for these events comes from a variety of sources such as KU, the National Science Foundation and the Economics Department Endowment Funds.

In addition to covering some of those major hap-penings, I am pleased to report that our colleague, John Keating, has been promoted to full professor; and David Slusky has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. In addition, this academic year David Slusky assumed the role of associate chair and director of un-dergraduate studies. Professor Earnhart and Professor Cai are taking sabbatical leaves this semester, and we are looking forward to hearing about their many new research endeavors and accomplishments once they come back for the Spring 2020 semester. Professor Iwata, who retired at the end of last academic year, was awarded professor emeritus status recently and is con-tinuing to conduct research and meet with his graduate students. We are conducting two new assistant profes-sor searches this academic year – one in the field of mi-croeconomics and financial economics and another one in econometrics. We hope to announce our new faculty members soon. As is customary, more and more de-tailed faculty news will follow in our Spring newsletter.

The next time you are in Lawrence, please consider dropping by our office in Snow Hall – or even consider sitting in on one of our fascinating guest lectures we of-ten host featuring the latest research from prominent visiting economists from around the world. 

In the meantime, please do keep us posted on your latest news (econalums@ku.edu), as we want to stay in touch with everyone on an ongoing basis. We would love to feature you in your own “alumni update” in the spring issue. 

Rock Chalk!

                                                      – Milena Stanislavova

Message from the Chair

The  KU Economist  was launched a number of years ago to improve and expand on our alumni outreach efforts, and we continue to be delighted with the response we have received from all corners of the globe. I hope in this issue, you enjoy reading about just a few of the successes of our gradu-ates – whether they have just completed a long and dis-tinguished legal career (page 5); are serving in dual roles working on a national bank commission while teaching economics (page 10); or have been chairing a depart-ment while emerging as a nationally recognized foren-sic economist (page 11).  And we are certainly grateful that so many of our alumni have chosen to give back and assure that their legacy on campus will continue in significant and visible ways (page 12).

It is particularly exciting to announce that Courtney “Corky” and Phyllis Nason, along with Rich and Judy Bill-ings have teamed up to establish the John Ise Memorial Fund, which supports a new distinguished lecture se-ries honoring the longtime faculty member and former chair of the Economics Department, John Ise. We were honored to host the recent visit from internationally re-nowned economist Dr. Steve Hanke from Johns Hopkins University, which was the first event of this lecture series (page 1). In addition, the fund provides for graduate and undergraduate awards as well as research support for faculty and graduate students.

Another point of emphasis for this publication is keeping our alums up to date on the growing national reputations of our award-winning faculty and students alike, as well as everything else going on in and around the Department in 2019-20.  KU Economics hosted a large number of national and international conferences and workshops this past academic year, ranging from the 10th Economic Theory Workshop in May 2019 (page 11); to the large and impactful annual meeting of the Chinese Economists Association in April 2019; and the

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