The University of Massachusetts Amherst

Category: Graduate

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Graduate

UMass Amherst grad students to attend EEA conference

The Eastern Economic Association is a not-for-profit corporation whose object is to promote educational and scholarly exchange on economic affairs.  Towards that end, the Association encourages the freedom of research and discussion.  In pursuit of these goals it publishes the Eastern Economic Journal and holds an annual conference and meeting of members.

The 37th annual conference is set for for February 25-27, 2011 in New York City.  The following UMass Amherst economics graduate students will be attending and presenting papers:

Amit Basole, “Relations of Production and Modes of Knowledge Appropriation:  A Case-Study of Weaving in India”

Thomas Bernardin, “Understanding Credit Bubbles:  The Role of Positive Feedback Processes in Driving Credit Expansion”

Gerald Epstein & Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, “Financial Economists, Financial Interests and Dark Corners of the Meltdown: It’s Time to Set Ethical Standards for the Economics Profession”

Nina Eichacker, “Placing Iceland’s Financial Crisis in Historical Context”

Gonzalo Hernandez Jimenez, “Terms of Trade and Output Fluctuations in Colombia”

Josh Mason, “How Much of the Fall in Investment Since 2007 Was Due to Tighter Credit Constraints?”

Hyun Woong Park, “Endogeneity of Money and the State in Marx’s Theory of Non-Commodity”

Costa Lapavitsas & Iren Levina, “Financial Profit:  Profit from Production and Profit upon Alienation”

Martin Rapetti, “Policy Coordination in a Competitive Real Exchange Rate Strategy for Development”

Tomas Nielsen Rotta, “A Marxian Theory of Financialization”

Mark Silverman, “The Ideological Effects of the Nomothetic Construction of Economics”

Mihnea Tudoreanu, “Causes of the Soviet Collapse:  The Marxist Views”

Zhun Xu & Hyun Woong Park, “Turnover and its Influence on the Rate of Profit”

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Epstein Graduate

Letter calls for code of ethics

Gerald Epstein

As Gerald Epstein, economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, economics PhD student, recently showed in their paper, “Financial Economists, Financial Interests and Dark Corners of the Meltdown: It’s Time to Set Ethical Standards for the Economics Profession,” the economics profession has no official standards or ethical code to regulate potential conflicts of interest between economists’ roles as experts and their frequent roles as consultants and agents of private firms. Epstein and Carrick-Hagenbarth have spearheaded an effort to remedy this issue with a letter to the the American Economic Association, which has garnered the support of close to 300 economists, and drawn the attention of the national media.  

Coverage includes: 
New York Times [Economix blog], 1/4/11
The Economist, 1/4/11
Cincinnati.com, 1/3/11
The Washington Post, 1/1/11
Bloomberg, 12/31/10
TheLedger.com, 12/31/10

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Graduate

Robin Kemkes, PhD Student, receives fellowship

Robin Kemkes

Robin Kemkes, an economics Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has received a prestigious Advanced Research Fellowship from the American Councils Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Program, which supports research in the independent states of the former Soviet Union.  The award is funded by the U.S. Department of State, Title VIII Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and Eurasia (Independent States of the Former Soviet Union).  Former Soviet Republics Georgia and Russia went to war in summer 2008 over a breakaway region.

Robin’s doctoral research focuses on equitable and sustainable rural development in the Upper Svaneti region in the former Soviet state of Georgia. The Advanced Research Fellowship will fund fieldwork and advanced study of the Georgian language over a six month period in summer and fall of 2011.  

“Georgia, and Upper Svaneti in particular, are fascinating places. I look forward to working with my research partners there to identify rural development paths that will sustain its rich cultural heritage and diverse natural landscape,” noted Robin. “The United States is invested in Georgia’s future, and it is important that development paths support ethnic stability in its rural regions.”

Kemkes participates in the Environmental Working Group based at the Political Economy Research Institute and led by UMass Amherst Professors James K. Boyce and Michael Ash. Ash said, “Robin has developed a fascinating project, and her selection demonstrates increased attention to questions of environmental and cultural sustainability in economic development.”

Robin already holds a master’s degree in ecological economics (University of Vermont 2008).  She has also received a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship for the Summer Workshop in Slavic and East European Languages (SWSEEL) at Indiana University where she studied the Georgian language intensively for eight weeks in summer 2010.

More than 6,000 students, scholars, and researchers have participated in American Councils programs overseas since 1976.  Its activity includes partnership affiliations with many Eurasian institutes and support for U.S. scholars in the former Soviet Union. Research funded by American Councils must “contribute to a body of knowledge enabling the U.S. to better understand the region and formulate effective policies within it.”

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Epstein Graduate

Epstein advocates for code of ethics

Gerald Epstein

Gerald Epstein, economics professor and department chair, comments in recent news stories about how the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, is debating whether to adopt a code of ethical standards. The move is coming in response to criticism of many economists who comment in the media or give professional testimony about economic issues without disclosing their personal and financial ties to the industries they are discussing. Epstein and graduate student Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth recently published a paper that found many of the financial economists who weighed in on new federal regulation of Wall Street didn’t disclose their potential conflicts of interest. (Reuters, 12/20/10; New York Times, 12/30/10; Bloomberg, 12/31/10)

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Epstein Graduate

Economists, Ethics, and Financial Policy

Gerald Epstein

Gerald Epstein, UMass Amherst economics professor and founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, UMass Amherst economics Ph.D. student, examine the conflict of interest that can occur when academic financial economists, presumed to be objective experts, fail to report their private financial affiliations in the course of their public discourse in the media. The authors look at these linkages in the cases of nineteen academic financial economists, and assess the impacts that these conflicts may have had on the economists’ proposals for financial reform policy.

Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth

>>Read media coverage of this study in the Boston Globe, New York Times and on NPR
>>Download “Financial Economists, Financial Interests and Dark Corners of the Meltdown: It’s Time to Set Ethical Standards for the Economics Profession” 
>>Read a related essay, “Conflicts of Interest and the Financial Crisis”

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Ash Boyce Graduate

Grace Chang receives EPA STAR fellowship

Grace Chang

UMass Amherst Economics Ph.D. student Grace Chang was among 120 students across the U.S. selected for the prestigious STAR (Science to Achieve Results) dissertation fellowship from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA STAR fellowship provides $111,000 of support over three years. Ms. Chang will use the funds to study environmental justice in exposure to industrial toxics in the United States.

Ms. Chang will use a unique new dataset from the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) project of the EPA to examine the social, economic, temporal, and geographic structure of exposure to industrial toxic releases in the United States.

Ms. Chang states, “My main focus is the health risk affecting low-income people and communities of color that are disproportionately exposed to industrial toxics. My work should be useful to environmental justice scholars, community activists, and socially responsible managers and investors.”

The goal of the research is to improve understanding of the dynamics of neighborhood environmental inequality, with broader impacts in public policy, community health, and corporate environmental performance. Chang works with the Corporate Toxics Information Project based at the Political Economy Research Institute and co-directed by UMass Amherst Professors James K. Boyce and Michael Ash. Ash comments, “Grace has developed a terrific project, and her selection demonstrates EPA’s increased attention to questions of social justice and equity in environmental protection.”

EPA created the STAR fellowship program in 1995 to help the U.S. cultivate outstanding researchers in environmental science, engineering, and policy. STAR fellowships bolster the environmental generation of tomorrow, build a bridge to diverse communities, and boost excellent research and development that advance the protection of human health and the environment.

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Graduate

Lee’s article supports minimum wage in Malaysia

Hwok-Aun Lee, a UMass Amherst doctoral student in economics, writes a column supporting the idea of establishing a minimum wage in Malaysia. The column responds to two previous pieces that opposed the idea. (Aliran.com, 6/28/10)

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Alums Graduate

Haynes ’81, ’93G appointed to Buffalo Common Council

Curtis Haynes

UMass Amherst economics alumnus, Curtis Haynes Jr. ’81, ’93G, was appointed to the City of Buffalo’s Common Council on January 14, 2010.  He represents the Ellicott District and his current term runs through the end of the year.  Dr. Haynes is also an assistant professor in the Department of Economics and Finance at Buffalo State College.

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Graduate Wolff

Wolff interviewed for Avgi, a Greek daily paper

Richard Wolff

Richard Wolff, UMass Amherst emeritus economics professor, was recently interviewed by Harry Konstantinidis, UMass Amherst economics doctoral candidate, for the Greek newspaper, Avgi.  During the interview Wolff addresses questions about the economic recovery in the United States, noting that the U.S. should take advantage of the opportunity to form communist class-structured enterprises.  He also discusses the ongoing financial crisis in Greece and points out that part of the reason Greece has had a hard time securing additional loans, and the reason they are paying such a higher interest rate for the loans they do secure, is because lenders put much of their money in the U.S. 

Interview with Athens, Greece, daily newspaper, Avgi
Richard Wolff
June 6, 2010

The US government borrowed trillions of dollars to rescue US capitalism. Suddenly, private lenders around the world realized that they could put all of  the money they wanted to lend to governments in the one safest country, the US. There was suddenly no need and no willingness to lend to other countries that were riskier borrowers than the mighty US. It was not that Greece or Portugal or Spain had become that much riskier than they had been last year. It was rather that the capitalist crisis in the US had changed the global credit system in ways that brought loanable funds to the US and made them much, much costlier for those other countries. Credit markets were working to shift the costs of the crisis from the US to Europe.

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Crotty Epstein Graduate PERI

Research by Epstein, Crotty & Levina supports breaking up large banks

A column promoting breaking up large banks cites research done by Gerald Epstein, James Crotty and Iren Levina, Political Economy Research Institute, on financial industry concentration. Their research shows that between 1993 and 2009, the top five commercial banks in the U.S. went from having 16.56 percent of total bank assets to 45.23 percent. The top five investment banks had 36.43 percent of overall revenue in 1993 and 65.61 percent by 2009, they say. (Huffington Post, 5/5/10)