Economics
College of Arts and Sciences, American University
Fall 2013 Newsletter
Report from the Chair
We are looking forward to another
great academic year in the Department
of Economics. The newsletter gives us an
opportunity to highlight some of the recent
events that have taken place.
Contents
Report from the Chair..........................1
Research in the Department............2-3
Recent PhD Recipients........................3
In Memoriam........................................3
Department Notables.......................4-6
American University
Department of Economics
104 Kreeger Hall
4400 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, D.C. 20016-8029
202-885-3770
202-885-3970 (fax)
econ@american.edu
www.american.edu/econ
www.facebook.com/aueconomics
https://twitter.com/AU_Economics
The department thanks Bob Feinberg for his
service as department chair over the past academic
year. Under his leadership, we successfully hired
two new faculty members, Nathan Larson and
Gabe Mathy, who are filling important teaching
and research needs left over from recent
departures. Their biographies can be found later
in the newsletter. They join a growing number of
junior faculty members who have recently been
added to the department. We also promoted two
of our senior faculty to full professors: Walter
Park and Paul Winters.
All of our faculty members continue to be active researchers, with many published journal
articles and book chapters. (A list of the journal articles can be found later in the newsletter.)
Several continue to serve as editors of professional journals, with Bob Feinberg as a co-editor and
Kara Reynolds as an associate editor of the Southern Economic Journal, Maria Floro and Caren Grown
as associate editors of Feminist Economics, Amos Golan as an associate editor of Econometric Reviews
and an editorial board member of Foundations and Trends in Econometrics, Mieke Meurs as an associate
editor of Politics and Society, Martha Starr as a co-editor of Review of Social Economics, and I as an
editorial board member of Public Choice.
All three of our academic programs remain strong and rank among the largest in the College
of Arts and Sciences. Mary Hansen directs the undergraduate program with about 300 students
spread over its three programs. John Willoughby directs the PhD program and welcomed in 15 new
students this fall. Kara Reynolds directs our MA programs and recruited 25 new students to the
program. She has also developed a fully online MA program, which launches summer 2014.
The department office continues to operate smoothly. Although Aisha Khan left us in the fall,
Lyndsey Romick took over the front desk in January and quickly learned the duties and is doing
a superb job. Danielle Robinson ably assists the program directors. Glen Arnold directs all office
operations with his usual outstanding administrative duties (and keeps me in line, too).
Please visit the department in Kreeger Hall if you are in the area. My best to all of you for a
successful year,
Tom
Tom Husted
Chair, Department of Economics
American University Department of Economics Newsletter
2
Research in the Economics Department
Info-Metrics Institute panelists at the April 2013 Workshop
Info-Metrics Institute Programs
Directed by Amos Golan, the Info-Metrics Institute continues to
host conferences at American University. Its spring 2013 workshop, Philosophy of Information, took place on April 26 and
brought a wide variety of experts together to present on topics
ranging from the value of information to how to measure and process information. Video footage of the event, as well as the presenters’ materials, can be found on the Institute’s website,
http://www.american.edu/info-metrics.
This year’s speakers included:
Pieter Adriaans (University of Amsterdam)
Ariel Caticha (State University of New York–Albany)
Min Chen (University of Oxford)
J. Michael Dunn (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Luciano Floridi (University of Hertfordshire & University of
Oxford)
Duncan Foley (New School and Santa Fe Institute)
Phyllis Illari (University College London)
James Moor (Dartmouth College)
Werner Ploberger (Washington University in St. Louis)
The Institute also held a special two-day tutorial on
Info-Metrics at AU in May 2013, taught by Amos Golan
(American University). Its purpose was to provide students,
researchers and faculty state-of-the-art hands-on tutorials
and training workshops on inferential methods for analyzing
data and processing information across the sciences.
The fall 2013 Info-Metrics Institute newsletter, which will
be available in mid-October, will include all Institute-related
updates from the past academic year as well as information
on upcoming Institute events. For further information and to
view the fall 2012 Info-Metrics Institute newsletter, please
visit http://www.american.edu/info-metrics.
Selected Recent Faculty Publications
Blecker, Robert (with C. Ibarra). “Trade Liberalization
and the Balance of Payments Constraint with Intermediate Imports: The Case of Mexico Revisited.” Structural
Change and Economic Dynamics (2013).
Feinberg, Robert. “International Competition and SmallFirm Exit in US Manufacturing.” Eastern Economic
Journal (2012).
Feinberg, Robert and Sonenshine, Ralph. “Merger Performance and Antitrust Review: A Retrospective Analysis.” Eastern Economic Journal (2013).
Floro, Maria. “The Crises of Environment and Social
Reproduction: Understanding their Linkages.” Journal
of Gender Studies (2012).
Floro, Maria (with R. Bali-Swain). “Reducing Vulnerability through Microfinance: Assessing the Impact of
Self-Help Groups in India,” Journal of Development
Studies (2012).
Gershman, Boris (with P. Howitt and Q. Ashraf). “Macroeconomics in a Self-Organizing Economy.” Revue de
l’OFCE, (2012).
Golan, Amos (with H. Gzyl). “An Entropic Estimator for
Linear Inverse Problems.” Entropy (2012).
Isaac, Alan (with Y.K Kim). “Consumer and Corporate
Debt: A Neo-Kaleckian Synthesis.” Metroeconomica
(2012).
continues on page 3
American University Department of Economics Newsletter
3
Selected Recent Faculty Publications
continued from page 2
Park, Walter and Sonenshine, Ralph. “On a Dynamic Panel
Analysis of RD and Mergers.” International Journal of
Applied Research in Business Administration and Economics (2012).
Winters, Paul (with R. Boone, K. Covarrubias, and
B. Davis) “Cash Transfer Programs and Agricultural
Production: The Case of Malawi.” Agricultural Economics
(2013).
Winters, Paul (with L. Corral and A. Moreda Mora).
“Assessing the Role of Tourism in Poverty Alleviation: A
Research Agenda.” Development Policy Review (2013).
Winters, Paul (with L. Lipper and R. Cavatassi). “Seed
supply in local markets: supporting sustainable use of
crop genetic resources.” Environment and Development
Economics (2012).
AY 2012-2013
PhD Recipients
Heath Henderson
Nicaragua, the Food Crisis, and the Future of Smallholder
Agriculture (Paul Winters, chair)
Amin Mohseni-Cherghlou
Three Essays in Social Economics (Martha Starr, chair)
Anjan Panday
Exchange Rate Misalignment, EMP and Monetary Policy, and
Investigating an OCA and Business Cycle Synchronization in
Nepal and India (Robert Blecker, Chair)
Susan Reilly
Essays on the Dynamics of Family Interactions (Mary Hansen,
chair)
In Memoriam: Cynthia Taft Morris
Creative scholar and passionate teacher Cynthia Taft Morris
died on July 16 at the age of 85. Here are some highlights of
her career and remembrances of her as a person of amazing
force of character.
After graduating from Vassar College in 1949, Cynthia earned
a master’s degree at the London School of Economics. She
worked for the Marshall Plan in Paris, where she collected
wage data from the capitals of Western Europe. Her Yale PhD
in 1959 was directed by labor economist Lloyd Reynolds.
Development Economist. She worked at the World Bank
when Hollis Chenery was setting up their research department.
With Irma Adelman, she broke ground with innovative
quantitative analysis of the determinants of economic
development. Together they published two books They believed
that economic performance could not be explained without
analyzing political and social forces. To explain poverty and
inequality, it was necessary to study institutions that structured
the distribution of income and wealth.
Economic Historian. Next, Cynthia and Irma applied
their quantitative technique to the economic history of the
world for a third book. The
research for all of their books
was financed by grants from the
National Science Foundation.
Cynthia Taft Morris
Cynthia created the Washington
Area Economic History Seminar and
invited renowned scholars in the field to interact with local
professors and students. In 1994, she was elected president of
the Economic History Association.
Passionate Teacher. Cynthia taught at American University
for 18 years. She taught American economic history and
supervised a large number of dissertations, including my own.
She demanded hard work and set high standards. Mid-career,
she was recruited as one of the few female senior economists
in the country to be a chair at Smith College, where she taught
for 15 years. Cynthia retired at age 70 and returned to American
University as Distinguished Economist in Residence. She
inspired and entranced her colleagues. She will be greatly
missed and long remembered.
By Sue Headlee
Associate Professor Emerita of Economics
American University Department of Economics Newsletter
4
Department Notables
Meet the New Faculty!
Gabriel Mathy comes to us from the University of California–
Davis, where he completed his MA and PhD. His interests
include economic history, financial economics, international
economics, and uncertainty, and he is teaching graduate-level
monetary economics this semester. Gabe is also co-organizing
the weekly department Research Seminar Series. He has
had some success at trivia night competitions. His team of
economists at Davis won the local trivia night competition five
times last year, including against their arch nemeses, the Master
Breeders (agricultural economists). He is also a Chicago Bears
fan.
Nathan Larson comes to us after teaching for a few years
at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on
how people extract, process, and disseminate (through social
media) information from environmental clues. This semester,
he is teaching an undergraduate course in game theory and is
thinking about developing a course on auction theory. In his
spare time, Nathan enjoys hiking and biking through Rock Creek
Park.
Bernhard G. Gunter is not a new face to the economics
department. He received his PhD at AU and has taught
as an adjunct. His areas of expertise include development
macroeconomics, international economics, debt sustainability
analysis, and the social impact of globalization. He also heads
the Bangladesh Development Research Center (BDRC).
Until recently, Ben has been coaching youth soccer, running
marathons, and improving his home. He is married to another
AU PhD, Jesmin Rahman, and they have two children.
Faculty News
Robert Blecker stepped down after four years as department
chair in 2012, at which time he became co-chair of AU’s Middle
States Accreditation Steering Committee. He has continued to do
research and publishing on US-Mexican trade and other topics
Gabriel Mathy
related to international economics and macro theory. Over the
last year, Blecker also gave presentations at conferences in San
Francisco (Latin American Studies Association, May 2012),
Berlin (Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic
Policy, FMM, October 2012), and New York (Eastern
Economics Association, May 2013). He has also contributed
several book chapters to publications on post-Keynesian macro
models for open economies, US trade deficits, and the balance of
payment constraint on Mexico’s growth.
Walter Park, in collaboration with Professor Sean Flynn and
Michael Palmedo, the Program on Information Justice and
Intellectual Property, and AU Washington College of Law
has received a grant from Google, Inc., to study the effects
of copyright flexibilities and limitations on innovation and
creativity. The project will involve both econometric work
using international firm-level data as well as an original survey
of copyright users in select countries. Funding is also provided
to help create a network of scholars interested in the study of
copyright users’ rights and to sponsor conferences and meetings.
Mary Eschelbach Hansen continues to make progress on her
major research project that will make available an historical
sample of bankruptcy cases across the US back to 1898. She and
her students are currently using pilot data to write papers about
diverse topics including the effect of central bank policy during
the Great Depression, the impact of Medicare on bankruptcy,
how bankruptcy “spreads” geographically, and the impact of
FEMA aid on bankruptcy. Student News
Megan Fasules received an Exploratory Research and Data
Grant from the Economic History Association, which allowed
her to gather data for her dissertation, “The Impact of Medicare
on Bankruptcy.” She hopes to determine the extent to which the
implementation of Medicare contributed to the decline in the
bankruptcy rate by reducing medical debt. This grant allowed
her to gather data from original court records of personal
bankruptcy cases filed between 1961 and 1973 in Maine. She
also received an AU Graduate Student Research Support Award.
Nathan Larson
continues on page 5
American University Department of Economics Newsletter
5
Department Notables
continued from page 4
Jess Chen won the Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship awarded
by the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics
Section of the American Statistical Association. Jess will
employ spatial analysis methods to detect possible geographic
clusters of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the United States. To do
this, she proposes to derive and implement a new test statistic,
or local indicator of spatial association, to detect local clusters
of Hodgkin’s disease using data from the National Program
of Cancer Registries (NPCR). Jess is working with Professor
Monica Jackson of Department of Mathematics and Statistics in
her spatial statistics research.
Ayesha Cooray (SIS/BA ’13, CAS/BS ‘13), Peter Blankenship
(BS ’13), and Zachary Smith (BS ’13) took home first place at
the district Fed Challenge competition in November 2012, which
was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Advised by
Professor Evan Kraft, the team was scored on their knowledge
of the Federal Reserve System, monetary policy, and the current
state of the economy. The team received an honorable mention
at the national competition at the Federal Reserve Board of
Governors in Washington, DC.
New faculty member and alum Bernhard Gunter also directs the
Bangladesh Development Research Center
Anjan Panday (PhD ’12) is starting a position as an economist
with the UK Department for International Development (DFID)
in his home country of Nepal in fall 2013. He taught as a visiting
assistant professor at Wake Forest University from 2012–2013.
Aaron Pacitti (PhD ’09) is starting his fifth year as an assistant
professor at Siena College in Loudonville, NY. He developed a
Alumni News
program to recruit new majors and created numerous campuswide events, helping to make the economics department the
After six months of teaching in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Francois fastest growing department at Siena. In addition to academic
Kabore (PhD ’12) is back in Washington, DC, teaching at
journals, his latest research on the rise of the service sector and
Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He is working
the pace of economic recovery, with co-author Martha Olney
with Professor Walter Park to publish the first chapter of his
from the University of California–Berkeley, has been featured
dissertation, and presented a paper on the mobility of knowledge in the Washington Post and by the Institute for New Economic
workers and development in Africa at the World Intellectual
Thinking. Some of his other research, with Professor Jon
Property Organization conference in Geneva in April 2013.
Wisman, has been published in the Huffington Post and by the
Center for American Progress.
Carlos A. Rossi (BA ’82) recently completed work on his fourth
book, The Energy Within Economics and the Bubble Envelope Eileen Stillwaggon (PhD ’79) is a professor in the economics
Theory for Human Prosperity. He is founder and president of
department at Gettysburg College. Eileen spent summer and fall
EnergyNomics, an energy economics firm in Caracas, Venezuela. of 2012 in an epidemiology course in Florence, Italy presenting
her work in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Pelotas, Brazil,
Joyce Northwood (PhD ’08) is employed as a senior financial carrying out research on congenital toxoplasmosis with a team
economist at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the of medical researchers in Brazil, advising Tunisia’s government
Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection. She works
on poverty eradication and health, and advising French
on analytic support for bank fair lending examinations and is
toxoplasmosis researchers on methods of estimating costs and
engaged in research and projects on predatory lending, lending benefits of maternal screening programs. Her most recent articles
discrimination, and economic inclusion. appear in Trends in Parasitology, PLoS Neglected Tropical
Diseases, and the Journal of the International AIDS Society.
After leaving a Cabinet post at the Ministry of Communications
and Transportation in Mexico, Alejandro Violante (PhD ’85), Behzad Touhidi (PhD ’82) took early retirement from a career
has been involved in the development of renewable energy
as a transfer pricing economic analyst with the Internal Revenue
and clean tech projects. At present, he has two mini hydros
Service to pursue a new career as a financial advisor and bus
and an eolic park, as well as the first integrated project in the
development manager for Unaoil Group, with a concentration on
State of Queretaro to do a massive transformation of the public West Africa.
transportation system from gasoline into CNG, including the
government fleet.
Arslan Razmi (PhD ’04) is now a tenured associate professor of
economics at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst.
continues on page 6
American University Department of Economics Newsletter
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Department Notables
continued from page 5
Department Launches MA in International Economics
The department admitted the first students to its new master’s
in international economics, a joint program with the School of
International Service, in the fall of 2013. In collaboration with
the International Economic Relations program, this new degree
will prepare students to analyze the most important issues in
our increasingly globalized economy.
Program director Kara Reynolds says, “the program is designed
for students who want to be involved with some of the big
players, whether it is multilateral development banks, the
global economic-governance institutions, or multinational
corporations.” Students will also benefit from our proximity to
these global institutions.
Drawing on the strengths of our faculty, the depth and detail
of this program is unique among domestic universities in that
it focuses on the theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented
aspects of international economics. Topics of study include the
macro and microeconomic consequences of international trade
and financial liberalization, exchange rate fluctuations, and
capital-markets integration. The program will also stress the use
of state-of-the-art statistical software to equip students with the
quantitative and analytical skills they need to be successful in
today’s workplace. The new program also includes a BA/MA
option that can be completed in five years.
Alumni News
continued from page 5
Henry Eskew (PhD ’88) has been an independent consultant
for the past twelve years. His clients include the Institute for
Defense Analyses, the Congressional Budget Office, and the
Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), among others. Prior to
becoming a consultant, Dr. Eskew spent 18 years with CNA,
where he had an extensive publications record. He was also
president and CEO of Administrative Sciences Corporation.
He has served on several occasions as guest lecturer at the
Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), was visiting professor of
economics at NPS, and was a commissioned officer in the US
Air Force.
Markley Roberts (PhD ’70) retired after 35 years at the
AFL-CIO and now teaches courses at the AU-affiliated Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). The courses include such
topics as Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, the 1787 US
Constitution, and Democracy in the age of Jackson.
Cyrus Bina (PhD ’83) has published several books over the
last few years, including Oil: A Time Machine (2012) and A
Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy: Oil, War, and
Global Polity (2013). He served as co-editor of Alternative
Theories of Competition: Challenges to the Orthodoxy (2012).
He was a guest speaker at a Columbia University seminar on
globalization, labor, and popular struggles in September 2013. He
teaches at the University of Minnesota.
Gyan Pradhan (PhD ’96) is currently economics department chair
at Eastern Kentucky University. From 1997–2009, he taught at
Westminster College in Missouri, where he served as department
and division chair.
Marty Wolfson (PhD ’84) published The Handbook of The
Political Economy of Financial Crises in January 2013. He
currently serves as the director of the Higgins Labor Studies
Program at the University of Notre Dame. Marty will retire from
Notre Dame in June 2014 after 25 years.
Yun Kim (PhD ’11) will be a post-doctoral fellow at Bowdoin
College in Maine for 2013–2014, after spending three years as a
visiting assistant professor at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
Wissam (Sammy) Harake (PhD ’10) has taken a new job as a
World Bank economist stationed in Beirut, Lebanon. Previously he
worked at the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC.
Marguerite (Meg) Berger (BA ’78, PhD ’89) is now the vice
president for impact evaluation and research at Vital Voices Global
Partnership in Washington, DC.
Stay in touch with Economics at AU
If you have news to share in our next newsletter, or simply want wiemer@american.edu, or by phone at 202-885-2986. All
to contact us, you can email Tom Husted at husted@american. gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and can
edu, or call him at 202-885-3773.
be designated towards several important initiatives including
the Economics Department’s General Fund, the Info-Metrics
To learn more about supporting the Department with a gift, Institute, the Barbara Bergmann Fellowship, or scholarship
please contact Dave Wiemer in the College of Arts and Sciences funds in memory of former faculty members Jose Epstein and
Office of Development and Alumni Relations via email at Frank Tamagna.