Category: Graduate

After a competitive application process, Robin Kemkes and Avanti Mukherjee, UMass Amherst Department of Economics PhD students, were selected to attend the Advanced Graduate Workshop on Poverty, Development and Globalization in Bangalore, India from January 7-18, 2013. Sponsored by Azim Premji University, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, the workshop brings together students undertaking their PhD research from around the globe to discuss issues of international development and globalization from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to the daily student workshops, a speaker series including some of the world’s top scholars and practitioners of development will provide daily insights into some of the key challenges and opportunities in international development and globalization, from both a regional and topical perspective.

Daniel MacDonald, UMass Amherst graduate student, is the winner of the Horvat-Vanek Prize for his paper, “Understanding the Sources of Productivity Growth During Industrialization: An Empirical Investigation of the Dynamic Properties of Piece Rate Contracts.” The prize is awarded every two years for a research paper of exceptional quality written by a young scholar in one of the areas of interest to International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP).

MacDonald’s paper uses data from a Massachusetts textile mill covering the period from 1834-1855 to better understand the economic history of industrialization. He argues that we must see this period’s strong labor productivity growth within the context of changing social relations at the mill. In the 1830s workers (who were mostly women from the rural New England countryside) often protested by reducing their effort when managers cut their piece rate. By the mid- to late-1840s, however, the women workers were more likely respond to wage reductions by increasing effort (and respond to wage increases by reducing effort). This surprising finding is, he argues, a sign of the transition to a wage-dependent workforce. This hypothesis is supported by statistical analysis as well as an analysis of the social history of industrialization.

Joo Yeoun Suh, PhD candidate in the UMass Amherst Department of Economics, is the recipient of a $10,000 Family Research Graduate Fellowship from the Center for Research on Families. With the funding she will be working with faculty mentor, Nancy Folbre, during the 2012-2013 academic year. Suh’s research is titled, “The Economic Value of Time Devoted to Raising Children and Caring for Elders.” Read more about the fellowship awards and the Center for Research on Families.

Charalampos Konstantinidis, UMass Amherst graduate student, has received a William Waters Grant from the Association for Social Economics. Konstantinidis was awarded the $5,000 grant for his research proposal, “How Resilient Is ‘Green’? Organic Farmers in the Crisis of European Capitalism.”

The William R. Waters Research Grant was established in 1999 in honor of William R. Waters, editor of the Review of Social Economy for many years and President of ASE in 1987.  The grant was first awarded for Summer, 2000.

The purpose of the William R. Waters Research Grant Program is to inspire economists to organize their research in social economics and social economy along the lines suggested by William Waters in his 1988 presidential address to the Association for Social Economics.

The major concern of social economics is explaining the economy in its broadest aspects; that is, showing how human beings deal with the ordinary business of using human and physical resources to achieve a level of material comfort. Explanation includes cultural, political, and ethical details as they are needed for a full understanding. As in any economics, there are three parts to social economics. First is the philosophical base of the social economist, which may or may not be a reflection of the philosophical base or ethos of the society he/she is studying. Social economics (or any economics) builds upon it. It is the hard core as in the recent popular literature of the philosophy of science. The second part of the discipline is a description of the significant characteristics of the economy. The economist must observe the multiplicity of economic reality and abstract those characteristics that are substantive. The two together, the philosophical premises and the empirical observations, will determine the third part of the discipline, social economic policy. Policy formulation is thus a mix of the first two. [William R. Waters, presidential address, “Social Economics: A Solidarist Perspective,” Review of Social Economy, 1988, p. 113 ff.].

Avanti Mukherjee, UMass Amherst Economics graduate student, was awarded the Sanjay Thakur Young Labour Economist award for the best paper at the 53rd annual conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) held at Udaipur, Dec 17-19. This award is given to an economist under the age of 40, who writes and presents a paper at the annual meeting. This year around 350 papers were eligible, and Avanti was given the award for her paper “Exploring Inter-State Variations of Rural Women’s Paid and Unpaid Work in India.” 

The ISLE was founded in 1957 by distinguished Indian academics, in the field of labour and industrial relations, especially Shri V.V. Giri, who later became the president of India.

UMass Amherst economics graduate student, Seung-Yun Oh, has been awarded a Five College Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year. The residential fellowship is designed to provide support to doctoral students finishing their dissertation and includes a $30,000 stipend and a research grant as well as office space, housing or housing assistance and health benefits. Seung-Yun’s dissertation is titled, “Evolutionary and Institutional Model of Family Economy.” She will be hosted by Smith College.