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Announcements for Friday, March 25, 2011

Announcements

  • Japan -- US State Department travel warning

    Please note the recent elevation of the State department travel warning for Japan.  At this point we believe there to be two ISU faculty members in Nagoya, and they have been in contact with us to confirm they are safe so far.  We are reasonably certain there are no ISU students in Japan.

    If you are aware of current or near term planned travel by ISU faculty, staff or students that involves Japan, please take reasonable action to make them aware of the elevated warning.  At this point it seems prudent to strongly encourage ISU personnel to avoid travel to Japan in the near term. 

    By policy, the elevated travel warning means that undergraduate student travel to Japan must be suspended until the level of risk is reduced.  Special circumstance exceptions for student travel to countries under a state department travel warning require approval by the Study Abroad Risk Management Committee.

    Because we do not have a comprehensive central system for tracking faculty, staff, and graduate student travel, departmental and academic college leadership are in the best position to know of current or near term travel plans of faculty, staff or graduate students.  Please make reasonable efforts to contact and inform potential travelers to Japan of the elevated travel warning and encourage them to postpone or revise their travel plans.

    Plans are underway for discussion of a more comprehensive central system or mechanism for tracking international travel by ISU faculty, staff, and students.  The recent tragic events in Japan and earlier in New Zealand suggest the need for more systematic and comprehensive central information about international travel schedules and plans.

    David K. Holger, President ABET 2009-2010Associate Provost for Academic Programs and Dean of the Graduate College

  • Free screening of Academy Award documentary -- "Inside Job" -- March 27

    There will be a free screening of this year's Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary: Inside Job. It promises to be a hard hitting look at the causes of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. There will be two screenings this Sunday, March 27th at 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm in the Soults Family Visitor's Center in the Memorial Union.Click on the link to view the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

News

  • Harl warns Iowans against deep tax cuts during recent Iowa Press segment

    To view episode click image of Harl.Professor Neil Harl was featured in the Friday, March 18 segment of the IPTV series Iowa Press. The topic "bump in the road" focused on the impacts of recent political unrest, earthquake, radiation concerns, and spiking oil prices as Iowa, the US, and the world climb toward economic stability. Harl spoke about Iowa's own recovery, warning against the impact of deep tax cuts proposed by the Branstad administration. To view the Iowa Press episode, click on the image of Harl.


    To view recent broadcast news stories that have featured portions of Harl's commentary, click on the link below.


    http://www.criticalmention.com/report/7809x205075.htm


     

  • Friday's Seminar: "Productivity, trade, and the R&D content of intermediate inputs" with Marla Ripoll, U of Pittsburgh

    Marla Ripoll is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined Pitt in 2000 after completing her PhD at the University of Rochester. Although initially interested in understanding the role of credit constraints in explaining recessions and expansions of the economy, her most recent research centers on growth and development economics. Her interests in this field include technology creation and diffusion, inequality, agricultural development, schooling and demographics. Her work has appeared in various journals including Journal of Monetary Economics, International Economic Review, and Review of Economics and Statistics. Her courses at Pitt include international trade, development economics and macroeconomics both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was awarded the 2004 Tina and David Bellet Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award, and the 2009 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Marla is currently a member of the editorial board of ESPE, the journal of Colombia’s Central Bank.


    "Productivity, trade, and the R&D content of intermediate inputs"


    Abstract: This paper explores a novel way to evaluate the extent to which R&D capital embodied in intermediate inputs affects productivity at the industry level. We propose the concept of R&D content of intermediates, which represents the R&D stock embodied in intermediate goods used in production. This concept parallels that of factor content of trade, and it requires the use of a global input-output matrix that specifies all industries and countries involved in the intermediate purchases. Using a sample of 32 countries and 13 manufacturing industries we compute the elasticity of industry-level TFP with respect to the R&D content of intermediates. We find that while for high-R&D intensive industries this elasticity is positive and significant, it is not statistically different from zero for low-R&D intensive industries. In addition, among high-R&D intensive industries most of the positive effects are due to purchases of intermediate inputs produced by the same industry in G5 countries.  

  • Monday's seminar: "Let There Be Light: How Reducing Poverty Affects the Demand for Energy" with Catherine Wolfram, U of California/Berkeley

    Catherine Wolfram is an associate professor of business administration at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and co-director of the Energy Institute at Haas. She is also a researcher at the UC Energy Institute, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an affiliated faculty member in the Agriculture and Resource Economics department and the Energy and Resources Group at Berkeley. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and on the editorial board of the Energy Journal, the Economics Journal and the Journal of Industrial Economics. Wolfram has published extensively on the economics of energy markets.  She has studied electricity industry privatization and restructuring around the world and has analyzed the effects of environmental regulation, including climate change mitigation policies, on the energy sector. 


    She is currently implementing several randomized control trials to evaluate energy efficiency programs. She received a PhD in economics from MIT in 1996 and an AB from Harvard in 1989.  Before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she was an assistant professor of economics at Harvard.


    "Let There Be Light: Reducing Poverty Affects the Demand for Energy "


    Abstract: Over the next several decades, economic development and anti-poverty programs will likely lift the incomes of the world’s poor.  In this paper, we study the implications for energy use, focusing on the accumulation of energy-using assets.  We begin by developing a simple model of household asset accumulation as a function of income when consumers are credit constrained.  We show that households are more likely to give up consumption of non-durables, such as food, in order to acquire durables, such as refrigerators, when transfers are lumpy or income growth is fast.  We find empirical support for this model using data from Oportunidades, the Mexican conditional cash transfer program that began in 1998.  Specifically, among households that received the same level of cumulative transfers, we find fewer refrigerators purchased by those that were randomly selected to begin receiving the transfers earlier, suggesting that they have accumulated the transfers over a longer time period.  We go on to show that income has a negligible effect on energy use conditional on asset ownership, confirming that the main driver of increased energy use among poor Mexicans has been the accumulation of energy-using assets.  We conclude by showing that the effects we have identified suggest large cross-country differences in the relationship between per capita GDP and energy use, which have not been recognized in previous projections.

  • Thursday's Behavioral/Experimental Workshop: "Lost in the Mail: A Field Experiment on Crime" with Ragan Petrie, George Mason University

    Ragan Petrie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and a Faculty Member in the Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES) both at George Mason University. She got her PhD in Economics and Agricultural Economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been working in the field of experimental economics for over 10 years. Her publications are on topics such as development, bargaining, public goods, gender and beauty.


     


    Abstract: For long-distance trade to efficiently take place, the costs of safely delivering goods must not exceed the benefits. Crime in the mail sector can then hamper the development of trade. We use a field experiment to detect crime in this sector and measure its differential impacts. We subtly, and realistically, manipulate the content and information available in mail sent to households and detect high levels of shirking and stealing. Eighteen percent of the mail never arrived at its destination, and even more was lost if there was a slight hint of something additional inside the envelope.Our study demonstrates the importance of transaction costs created by crime and that not everyone in the population is equally affected. Crime is strategic and depends on the expectations of being caught.

  • Friday's Behavioral/Experimental Workshop: "Candidate Canvassing: How Campaigns Win Votes and Influence Elections," with Marco Castillo, George Mason U.

    Marco Castillo received his PhD in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research interests include experimental economics and development economics, especially bargaining and the behavior of groups. He has published in the American Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior and Economic Inquiry.



    "Candidate Canvassing: How Campaigns Win Votes and Influence Elections"


    Abstract: We investigate the impact of candidate canvassing on voter turnout and voter choices by implementing an experiment in a recent election for county government in a Midwestern state. To our knowledge, this is the first experiment that evaluates the impact of a candidate’s direct campaigning on voters’ decisions. We randomize the content of the campaign pamphlet delivered to the household and whether the candidate delivered the pamphlet in person. The control group was left untouched. Contrary to the get-out-the-vote literature, we find no evidence that visits by a canvasser (the candidate personally) increase turnout. Importantly, we find that certain messages can depress turnout, whether delivered by the candidate or not, but more so when delivered in person. Turnout among voters that are ex-ante less likely to vote is reduced by 12 percentage points for some treatments, but the effect is negligible among more likely voters. With respect to voter support for the candidate, pamphlets alone have no robust effect. However, candidate canvassing does increase the likelihood of voting for the candidate by roughly 20 percentage points. This effect is largest among unaffiliated or persuadable voters. Consistent with signaling theories of political campaigning, the effect of campaigning on who voters support is largest among those that are ex-ante less likely to vote and less likely to support the candidate.

  • Weekly media connections for the Department of Economics

    Find links to most of these articles at the following:

    http://www.public.iastate.edu/~nscentral/mr/10/0319/0319.shtml

    List courtesy of Jackie King, ISU News Service

    • Chad Hart spoke with Sue Danielson, WHO radio, about the rumor concerning U.S. imports of Chinese corn. He spoke with Dirck Steimel, Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman, about the impact of the Japanese disasters on agricultural markets. And he spoke with Gregory Meyer, Financial Times, about agricultural government support and the rural economy.
    • Dave Swenson was interviewed by Steve Jordan, a reporter with the Omaha World-Herald, about the consequences of the Japanese disasters on Midwestern and Plains states economies.
    • Family Farms Dwindle, Administration Probes Why, KCUR, Kansas City , 03-11-10 (Neil Harl, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Rising food prices may start with seeds, Los Angeles Times, CA , 03-12-10 (Neil Harl, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Iowa State University); Also ran: Chicago Tribune, IL
    • U.S. to Enforce Antitrust in Farming, Holder Says, Bloomberg , 03-12-10 (Dermot Hayes, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University); Also ran: BusinessWeek
    • Administration Turns Eye Towards Agribusiness, WBUR, MA , 03-12-10 (Neil Harl, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Still much to be determined before GM goes generic, Iowa Independent, IA , 03-12-10 (Dermot Hayes, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Corn futures generally heading in a positive direction, Farm & Ranch Guide, ND , 03-13-10 (Chad Hart, Assistant Professor of Economics and ISU Extension Economist, Iowa State University)
    • South America's soybean crop takes center stage, Farm %amp; Ranch Guide, ND , 03-13-10 (Chad Hart, Assistant Professor of Economics and ISU Extension Economist, Iowa State University); Also ran: The Prairie Star, ND
    • Forum addresses ag competition, Des Moines Register, IA , 03-13-10 (Neil Harl, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • China - Increasing pork imports, Meat Trade Daily, Argentina , 03-14-10 (Dermot Hayes, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • NPPC Works To Reopen Chinese Market, Pork Magazine, KS , 03-15-10 (Dermot Hayes, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Biz Buzz: Pappajohns rank 23rd nationally for '09 gifts, Des Moines Register, IA , 03-16-10 (Neil Harl, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Iowa State University.)
    • Oil and Gas Industry Fights to preserve Billions, California Progress, CA , 03-17-10 (David Swenson, Associate Scientist in Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Current recession 'worst' for Des Moines area, report says, Des Moines Register, IA , 03-17-10 (Peter Orazem, University Professor of Economics, Iowa State University)
    • Specialist says grain price spikes likely, Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA , 03-18-10 (Chad Hart, Assistant Professor of Economics and ISU Extension Economist, Iowa State University Extension, Iowa State University)
    • Tax credit bills clear committees in both chambers, Iowa Independent, IA , 03-19-10 (Dave Swenson, Associate Scientist, Economics, Iowa State University)

Graduate Student Announcements

External Seminars and Workshops

Conferences and Calls for Papers

Funding Opportunities

Job Opportunities

  • USDA-FAS job announcement -- Climate Change Stabilization Specialist
  • Job opening for natural resource economist at TIAA-CREF

    My contact at TIAA-CREF says they are interested in agricultural economists.  Apparently TIAA-CREF has significant agricultural land holdings in its real estate investment portfolio. 

    THE POSITION: The MD Natural Resources Economist will be responsible for natural resources investment, geographic natural resources markets, and demographics  including  monitoring, analyzing and forecasting the domestic and/or international economic environment.  Activities include briefing internal managers and/or external clients, preparing economic research as a component of investment strategy, designing and preparing internal and external regular and periodic publications dealing with economic topics specific to natural resources investment, geographic natural resources markets, and demographics. 

    Interested parties please contact Mark Johnson at 415-882-1576, or send your resume and cover letter to majohnson@tiaa-cref.org.

Papers and Presentations