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Life in the Department of Economics at the University of Cincinnati has been and continues to be very dynamic. Changes are occurring in a number of different settings. In January of this year, the faculty in the department physically moved into Lindner Hall, sharing

space with colleagues in the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. During the past academic year, we began the mentoring process for our four new faculty members and they are proving to be valuable additions to the department. As we look forward, we will see additional new personnel and programs as we continue building an outstanding department, one that will gain national recognition.

For the past three years, the University of Cincinnati has been implementing a conversion of the academic calendar from the quarter system to the semester system. This has necessitated a complete reengineering of all courses and programs. The Department of Economics has successfully completed the curriculum conversion including the advising of students caught in the transition. I am extremely proud of the efforts put forth by Economics faculty members both for course revisions and program redesign. The cooperation offered has a special meaning to me because it has been my privilege to serve the University as Co-Chair of the campus-wide Steering Committee for Quarter to Semester Conversion.

Change has also occurred in the personnel that make up the Department of Economics. First, the former Department Head, Dr. Sourushe Zandvakili, has returned to full-time faculty status effective this year. He has been a very diligent and hard working department head and his service to the department and university are greatly appreciated. As we transition to a new department head in the future, I will serve in the position on an interim basis and continue efforts initiated by Dr. Zandvakili to strengthen the department.

Also newly appointed is the Director of the Center for Economic Education, Dr. Julia Heath. Dr. Heath joins us after several years of service to her prior institution, the University of Memphis, where she directed their Economics Center. Our previous Center Director, Dr. George Vredeveld, is returning to full-time faculty status this year. The Center for Economic Education has provided the university and college with national recognition for a number of years and we deeply appreciate the efforts of Dr. Vredeveld in building that reputation.

Joining both the Center for Economic Development and the Department of Economics is Dr. Michael Jones. Dr. Jones finished his doctorate in Economics at Notre Dame in May 2012. While he will primarily be supporting the Center in its activities, he will also be providing needed class coverage for the Department and continuing his academic research agenda.

In addition to changes in personnel, there has been a significant change in academic programming. During the Spring Quarter of 2012, the faculty of the Carl H. Lindner College of Business approved a new doctoral program in Economics. Demonstrating the synergistic relationship that exists between the Department of Economics and the Carl H. Lindner College of Business, the doctoral degree in Economics will be part of the existing doctoral program of the college and utilize several of the research related courses already being offered to doctoral students in other disciplines.

While there has been much change recently, the future of the Department looks extremely promising. With the new doctoral program, the Department once again has the array of programming expected of a major research university. We have a continuing responsibility to enhance the discipline of Economics and we very much appreciate your support in this endeavor.

Thanks,

William WhitakerInterim Department Head

FA L L 2012 | D E PA R T M E N T O F E C O N O M I C S

econnews is published annually for alumni by the Department of Economics.

News items, comments and suggestions are welcome.

For information, call 513-556-7040.

Laura Dickson, Editor

From the Department Head

Bill Whitaker

Attention MA in Applied Economics GradsLooking for a great way to keep in touch with your former classmates?

Want a chance to network with other program alums?

Need to better advertise to clients?

For all of these reasons and more, we created a UC MA in Applied Economics Group on the business networking site LinkedIn. We encourage all of our former students to join LinkedIn and our group. To join LinkedIn (if you are not already a member) visit www.linkedin.com. To join the Applied Economics Group once you are a LinkedIn member, visit:

www.linkedin.com/e/gis/853447

InsideFrom the Department Head 1

Spring Banquet Awards 2

Faculty and Staff News 2

In Remembrance 3

Kautz-Uible Lecturer Reads Tea Leaves in Honest Tea 4

Undergraduate Program Redesigned 4 to Meet Student Needs

Undergraduate Economics Society Visits New York City 5

Graduate Program Evolves, Streamlines, Expands 6

MA in Applied Economics Graduates Bumper Crop 6

Kautz-Uible, Taft Center Sponsored Lectures Enrich LCB 6

Board names David Sinton Professor of Economics 7

The Department of Economics Family Expands! 7

Alumni News 7

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UNDERGRADUATEHewett-Kautz FellowshipRyan Azbell Ross HambrickMatthew Bova Nick HertleinMichael Dickson Stephanie LariosVanessa Finzer Alex MergardKevin Gade Alex Zugelter

Caroline Kautz Book PrizeDinushki De LiveraKyle Staskey

Citicorp ScholarshipYakubu Mahdi

Maurice Hexter ScholarshipSally Amkoa Edwin L. Frank Prize in EconomicsZhengxi Wu

Outstanding Student in EconomicsStephanie ChampnessRobert Behlen

GRADUATEVirginia and Gordon Skinner ScholarshipSoumya Bag Dennis RiggsStephanie Champness Erik Stultz

The 27th annual Economics Banquet, honoring 2012-13 scholarship recipients, was held on May 16th 2012. The speaker for the evening was UC alumnus, Dr. Lewis Assaley, Senior Vice President at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

Dr. Assaley regaled guests with anecdotes from his work in the financial sector and his time spent as a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Assaley recounted his early work, analyzing crime patterns using economic analysis, and advised current students to make use of the critical thinking skills they are developing as economic students.

Christopher Randall and Ryan Azbell detailed the Economic Society’s recent trip to New York City.

Spring Banquet Awards

We would like to congratulate the following students on their academic achievement and awards.

First row (seated): Yakubu Mahdi, Dinushki De Livera, Vanessa Finzer, Michael Dickson, Stephanie Larios. Second row (standing): Zhengxi Wu, Ryan Azbell, Sally

Amkoa, Matthew Bova, Alex Mergard, Alex Zugelter

Graduate Director Dr. Nicolas Williams and graduate student scholarship recipients (L to R) Dennis Riggs, Soumya Bag,

Stephanie Champness, and Erik Stultz.

Department Head, Sourushe Zandvakili and Featured Speaker, Lewis Assaley

faculty news David Brasington had articles accepted in the journal, Economics

Letters and for a book chapter. He was named Associate Editor of the Journal of Regional Science. Dr. Brasington won Taft Center Awards in support of his research presentation at the Western Regional Science Association conference in Kauai, Hawaii and the North American Regional Science Association conference in Miami, Florida.

Lenisa Chang was awarded Taft Center Travel Grants to both

present her research on infant immunizations at the American Society of Health Economists conference in Minneapolis and at the Eastern Economics Association in Boston. In addition, she gave a seminar at the IUPUI Department of Economics. Dr. Chang has taught special modules on health economics to students from the UC Medical School and has started collaborations with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and UC Medical School faculty.

Erwin Erhardt was named a recipient of a 2011-12 Department of Athletics’ Legion of Excellence Student-Athlete Faculty Impact Award in February 2012.

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Debashis Pal was included in the Dean’s List of Teaching Excellence at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business in Winter 2012. This recognition identified faculty who were assessed by their students as providing a high-quality classroom experience. Dr. Pal published two research articles in leading economics journals. He was awarded a Taft Research Center grant in support of his December 2011 trip to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), where he conducted collaborative research. He also continued to serve as the undergraduate program director in economics.

Olivier Parent published in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Journal of Regional Science and Journal of Geographical Systems. He presented at the North American Regional Association Meeting (Miami, Fl), the Fifth World Conference of the Spatial Econometrics Association (Toulouse, France) and the annual meeting of the Midwest Econometrics Group (Chicago, Il). He serves on the editorial boards of Papers in Regional Science and Review of Regional Studies. Dr. Parent also lectured at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and Northern Illinois University. In collaboration with DAAP, he was a recipient of UC Forward grant support to establish courses with an interdisciplinary focus.

Benjamin Passty transitioned to the Economics Center, successfully completing studies on the print industry, sales taxes in Ohio, and city finance for paying clients. He presented at the Midwest Economic Association and Association of University Bureaus of Economic Research. Footage of an interview with Dr. Passty on the economics of riparian zone preservation will be included in an EPA video on rivers.

John Winters published articles in four journals: Economic Development Quarterly, Economics of Education Review, Journal of Human Resources, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. John presented his research at the annual meetings of the Society of Labor Economists and the Southern Economic Association. John was also invited to join IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor) as a Research Fellow. IZA is a highly respected international research network and institute for labor market research.

resignationsLaura Dickson, MBA and LCB Alum, left the department in

the Spring of 2012 to accept the position of graduate program manager in the College of Medicine at UC. For four years, Laura was the soul of the department. Laura innovated and contributed to our department, ranging from financial matters, budgeting, and forecasting, to public relations. She was a team player, providing analytical support to various stakeholders throughout the College, above and beyond the call of duty. She was always quick, efficient, and friendly. We sincerely thank her for outstanding service and dedication and wish her much success.

Nese Sara, Assistant Professor, has been with the Economics Department since 2009. She taught undergraduate courses in micro, macro and international trade, and graduate courses in microeconomics. Dr. Sara served as the faculty advisor of the Economics Society for the past two years. She accompanied members of the Economics Society on educational trips to Chicago and New York. Dr. Sara returned to her country of Turkey this summer. She and her fiancé, Can Turkseven, celebrated their wedding on July 14 and have settled in Istanbul, Turkey.

Iryna Topolyan taught a wide range of courses in macroeconomics over the last two years, with a full teaching load as

a Visiting Professor. In addition, she maintained her research activity and published research articles in Economic Theory and Economics Letters, and refereed for Economics Bulletin. She finished her assignment with the department and joined the department of Economics and Finance at Mississippi State University as an assistant professor.

new faculty and staffJulie Heath is the Director of the Economics Center. She received her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Heath received a Visiting Research Fellowship to Princeton University to conduct research in economics education and has published extensively in the area. She has won several teaching awards, including the Carnegie Foundation U.S. Professor of the Year Award

for Tennessee; the economics discipline’s highest award, the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award; and received the Educator of the Year Award from the National Association for Financial Literacy, both in 2008. She has received the University’s Thomas W. Briggs Foundation’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Distinguished Teaching Award. She was named the 2006 Financial Educator of the Year by the Tennessee Bankers Association. Dr. Heath is a member of the national Board of Directors of the Council for Economic Education and is a member of the Economics Standing Committee of the National Assessment of Education Progress.

Michael Jones earned his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in May 2012. He also holds an M.B.A from the University of Cincinnati. His research interests are in the fields of labor economics, public economics, and the economics of education.

Barbara Metzger joined the department in Spring of 2012 as our Administrative Coordinator. She came to LCB in 1997,

working for the Departments of Accounting and Information Systems. Barbara is a veteran UC employee, with service at the East Campus, Holmes Hospital and the Barrett Cancer Center as a medical secretary and administrative assistant.

In RemembranceOver the past two years, the Department of Economics has lost

three of its alumni, all of whom served as Adjunct Instructors for the Department—during their graduate education and/or beyond. Their journeys all came to an end after courageous battles with various forms of cancer.

On September 10, 2010, Darlene DeVera, (M.A. 2000) passed away. At the time of her death, Darlene was serving as an Economics Instructor at De Anza College in San Francisco California.

On October 7, 2011, Don A. Ostasiewski , (M.A. 1965) a professor at Thomas More College who served for years as an adjunct professor of economics at UC — primarily in the LER Program and former Evening and Weekend College, passed away.

Dr. Jack Julian, (Ph.D. 2002), passed away on July 11, 2011 while serving as a Professor of Economics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. All three of these dedicated teachers will be remembered by the many students who they taught over the years.

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Dr. Barry Nalebuff, professor at the Yale School of Management, author,

and co-founder of Honest Tea, delivered the 2011 James C. Kautz Lecture on “The Value of Understanding Maximization.”

Nalebuff began the lecture with a review of complements duopoly and explained the incentive to misrepresent costs by companies within a complement duopoly.

Dr. Nalebuff then changed topics to a case study about Honest Tea, the company that he co-founded with former student and current Honest Tea president and CEO, Seth Goldman.

The case study began with a look at the market for soft drinks. Nalebuff explained how he identified a hole in the market for “less sweet” beverages. The market was filled with high calorie, high sugar drinks

per bottle is relatively small, but the taste difference is large.

It wouldn’t have been a proper economics lecture without a utility curve, and Dr. Nalebuff delivered with the taste curve printed on every label of Honest Tea. The curve shows Honest

Tea near the top of the taste vs. sugar curve and shows competitors far into the realm of diminishing marginal returns.

Dr. Nalebuff’s lecture was a perfect example of “theory meets the real world” and showed the importance and monetary value of understanding maximization.

Kautz-Uible Lecturer Reads Tea Leaves in Honest Tea

Barry Nalebuff with Graduate Students and Scholarship Winners

and the Yale professor sought to fill the void in the market with a low calorie, low sugar drink.

Dr. Nalebuff spoke in great detail about a trip to India, during which he learned of his ability to taste the difference between high and low quality tea. He also learned that high quality tea costs about 5¢ a cup to produce. Nalebuff discussed how he had found the world’s cheapest luxury good, and the product that could fill the “less sweet” beverage hole in the market.

Next, after exploring the high cost of shipping, Nalebuff concluded that when shipping costs are high, there is no point in shipping low-quality products. He explained that when the bottle costs 75¢, the difference between Snapple’s ingredient cost of 1¢ per bottle and Honest Tea’s ingredient cost of 5¢ Jim Kautz, Barry Nalebuff, and Woody Uible

We took advantage of UC’s move to the semester system to redesign

our undergraduate economics program. The enhancements we’ve made keep the program current with today’s fast changing environment and create seamless alignments with other business disciplines.

To satisfy increasing market demand for graduates with economic data analysis skills, a course in economic data analysis is now

Undergraduate Program Redesigned to Meet Student Needsa required component in the curriculum. A wider array of courses with relevance to the current economic climate has also been added.

Aligning our program further with other business disciplines now offers Business Economics majors the opportunity to earn a second major in areas like as accounting, finance, or marketing by spending, at most, one additional semester at the University.

Economics majors can earn a second major in disciplines such as mathematics or political science by spending up to one additional semester at the University.

To help students who face difficulties attending classes during regular class hours, we are offering internet based long distance courses in tandem with virtual tutoring.

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Twelve members of the Undergraduate Economics Society visited New York

City with advisor, Dr. Nese Sara, on an edu-cational trip in April 2012. To put the trip in scope, the metropolitan gross domestic product of New York City is 12.86 times that of the Cincinnati-Middletown area, and the population is 3.8 times that of the Cincinna-ti-Middletown area. Transportation within the city was an experience in and of itself. Over 4.3 million people (twice the popula-tion of Cincinnati) commute daily via the NYC subway.

Our trip got off to a great start with appointments at Standard and Poor’s and then with Bloomberg News. We also had the rare opportunity to be on the trading floor of the NYSE, where we saw the opening bell and met with a Senior Manager from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Later, we met with the Executive Director of JP Morgan, and then with the Vice President of Equity research at Credit Suisse, both UC alums. We discussed careers, current events, and current economic issues.

We also visited the United Nations headquarters, Greenwich Village, and Chinatown. Later one evening we visited the 9/11 memorial, which was a truly meaningful experience for all of us.

One of the things we noticed on our trip was the friendliness and helpfulness of the people. New Yorkers provided directions as well as recommendations while we were

Undergraduate Economics Society visits New York Citythere. It was inspiring to be in a city where people are so busy, driven, and focused, yet would still take the time to help a group of strangers.

Our trip was made possible due to support from the Department of Economics and the Kautz-Uible Fund. We both expanded our horizons and provided strong representation of UC. It is important to

mention we received much help from Laura Dickson, the UC Economics faculty, Dr. Lewis Assaley, and Patti Ragio. Without their guidance we would not have been as successful in arranging such an interesting, high level itinerary. If you would like any further information regarding our experiences in New York please feel free to contact me at randalcr@mail.uc.edu .

From left to right, seated: Michael Dickson, Jay Irwin, Andrew Gullion, and Patrick Etter Millard. Standing: John Bruns, Ryan Azbell, Michael King, Alex Zugelter, Paul

Stout, Vincent Valentino, Christopher Randall, and Chloe Bierman

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The MA in Applied Economics program bore the fruits of a larger than average class during graduations academic year 2011-12, with a total of 22 students completing the program.

Recent placements include American Greetings, Axcess Financial, dunnhumby, GE Capital, Macy’s, Nielson, Vantiv, teaching positions in higher education, and others.

December 2012 Commencement Exercises participants (front row L to R): Scott Taylor, Eric Hickman, Jessica Bartley, Swati Rupam, Wing Chi Lee, Shenglan Shen (2nd row

L to R): Jon McCarthy, Ian Trubee, Richard Walkley, Chandeel Konara Mudiyanselage

MA in Applied Economics Graduates Bumper Crop

This has been an exciting year of advancement and development for graduate studies in the department. We transitioned

physically into the Lindner Building, and now feel even more fully integrated into the Lindner College of Business.

Our updated curriculum under the semester system can now be completed in one calendar year of full-time studies. The program begins in August and ends with a research project the following summer. We hope that the shorter time required for the degree will help decrease the direct costs of the program, and increase the effectiveness of internships in facilitating the transition to full-time jobs after graduation.

Although we have shortened the time spent in the program we have strived to do so without sacrificing the fundamental economics and econometric content that gives our students their comparative advantage in the marketplace. Important changes include:• Asustainedfocusonmicroeconomic

theory, while increasing our coverage of macroeconomics.

• Acontinuedemphasisonappliedeconometrics, with an additional class being offered in panel data analysis, and perhaps Bayesian econometrics in the future

• Anewfocusontheapplicationoftheory and econometrics into specific areas of economics. For the 2012-2013 year these will be classes in Personnel Economics and Urban and Regional Economics. We hope to offer courses in

Graduate Program Evolves, Streamlines, Expands Industrial Organization and International Trade in the future.Providing our students the opportunity to become SAS certified

through a restructuring of our SAS and econometrics classes.Finally, we are moving forward on restarting our PhD program.

This past year we have taught PhD-level courses in Microeconomic Theory and Econometrics for the other PhD programs in the Lindner College of Business. Our plans are to admit our first cohort of new PhD students in August 2014.

The Speakers Series this year featured visits from many prominent academics from around the globe. Greg Allenby, Helen C.

Kurtz Chair in Marketing, The Ohio State University, helped to kick off the series with a mini-course in Economics and statistical issues in marketing, with sponsorship from both the Kautz-Uible Fund in Economics and the Marketing Department. Olivier Parent spearheaded organization of the mini-course.

A sampling of other visiting notables includes Taft and Kautz-Uible sponsored speakers Kosali Simon, of Indiana University, also research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research and the Center for Economic Studies at the Census Bureau, and Tom DeLeire, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Each spoke about research in the field

John Winters, Jesus Lopez-Rodriguez, David Brasington, and Debashis Pal

Kosali Simon and Lenisa Chang

Kautz-Uible, Taft Center Sponsored Lectures Enrich LCBof economics and health insurance and was hosted by Lenisa Chang.

Moving into the realm of economic geography, John Winters hosted Dan Rickman, Regents Professor of Economics and Oklahoma Gas and Electric Services Chair in Regional Economic Analysis at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Rickman’s visit was sponsored with both a Taft Grant and Kautz-Uible funding. Jesus Lopez-Rodriguez, from A Coruna University, Spain, also offered an economics geography topic regarding Wages and Human Capital in Romania, and was hosted by David Brasington.

In total, the lecture series offered 14 opportunities to hear from guest speakers regarding a variety of economics topics. Sourushe Zandvakili, Nicolas Williams, and Benjamin Passty organized additional lectures of great interest, and David Brasington chaired the speakers program. Two Department Research Mini-Conferences were also organized, with research presentations by our very own faculty.

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The Department of Economics Family Expands!

In the past year, we have welcomed the following:

Allison, born June 12, 2011 to Iryna Topolyan and Seth Streitmatter.

Abraham Wyatt, born December 15, 2011 to John and Amanda Winters.

Anna Erica, born January 17, 2012 to Ben and Jocelyn Passty.

Elyas, born July 14, 2012 to Olivier Parent, Imane Khayat and big sister, Leena.

Daniel Jackson and Riley Sofia, born June 11, 2012 to David Brasington.

Miriam, born May 30, 2012 to Michael and Courtney Jones and big brother, Isaac.

Ben and Jocelyn Passty

Allison and Iryna Topolyan

The UC Board of Trustees named Professor Debashis

Pal the David Sinton Professor of Economics on May 22, 2012.

Pal is undergraduate program director and professor of economics in the Lindner College of Business. He joined UC in 1994 and has published extensively in esteemed academic journals. His research has been widely cited in journals and textbooks.

“Professor Pal has demonstrated excellence across research, teaching, and service for many years,” Lindner College of Business Dean David Szymanski says. “It is our pleasure to name him as the David Sinton Professor of Economics to recognize and reward his outstanding accomplishments.”

Pal’s pioneering research contributions have created three distinct areas of exploration in multi-period oligopoly, mixed oligopoly and spatial economics.

“Debashis is a prolific researcher with a national and international reputation,” says Sourushe Zandvakili, professor of economics in the Lindner College of Business. “He has made significant contributions to the Theory of Industrial Organization, Regional Science and Microeconomic Theory.”

He shares his research passion and knowledge of economics with students, bringing up-to-date findings to the classroom.

Pal earned a bachelor and master degrees in statistics from Indian Statistical Institute. He then earned his PhD in economics from the University of Florida, Gainesville.

The David Sinton fund was created in 1899 and named after David Sinton, who made his fortune in manufacturing iron. The fund was used to establish the David Sinton Professor of Economics.

Sinton lived in the Longworth mansion, which is now the Taft Museum of Art. His daughter, Anna Sinton Taft, was the wife of Charles Phelps Taft, Times-Star editor and brother of President

William Howard Taft. Sinton died at age 93 and left a sizeable estate to his daughter, who

later formed UC’s Taft Research Fund.

Board names David Sinton Professor of Economics

alumni newsRandy Clark (BA’89) became pastor of

The Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Huber Heights, Ohio July 1, 2012.

Mari Inoue (BA’01, MA’03) graduated and moved to Japan, joining GE Consumer Finance. In November 2011 she moved from the Consumer to the Commercial sector at GE, and is managing a team of 7 people working on portfolio analysis. Mari says, “No matter which department you go to, understanding macroeconomics is necessary for planning and decision making, as well as SAS skills to extract and perform analysis. I am really glad to have studied Economics and SAS at the University of Cincinnati.”

Bride, Prajaya, and Groom, Saurabh Niraula, in Kathmandu, Nepal

Nari Inoue (BA’01, MA’03) is a Manager at GE Capital Risk Department in Japan, where she reviews the Consumer Finance portfolio. Nari says, “I used to use SAS to gather data from the database, create regression models for future predictions, and create reports for management, but the analysts in my team are doing the job for me now. The SAS and Data Analysis classes that I took while I was studying at the University of Cincinnati are helping me in my career.”

Saurabh Niraula (MA ‘10) married March 9, 2012 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Employed as a Sr. Analyst at Hanover Research, Washington, DC.

Debashis Pal

by Judy Ashton

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Department of EconomicsUniversity of CincinnatiPO Box 210037Cincinnati, OH 45221-0037

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Identical twins and UC alumni, Mari and Nari Inoue, with Debashis Pal during Dr. Pal’s April 2009 trip to Japan, where he presented his research at the University of Tokyo.

alumni news