Home

Announcements for Friday, September 21, 2012

Announcements

  • New Linux terminal server now available

    A new new Linux terminal server econ3.econ.iastate.edu is now available in the department. Its main purpose is to support high performance research computing, and is available for use by all economics and CARD faculty and staff.

    An Adobe Acrobat document (“High Performance Linux Terminal Server.pdf”) provides information on how to connect to the server and launch selected software titles installed on it (e.g., R, Matlab, and Gauss). The document also provides details on the hardware, backup and maintenance procedures, access to file servers and printers, and resource-management policies.

    Please contact Economics IT staff at econtechs@iastate.edu (John Inama, Tan Nguyen, and Mike Long) if you have any questions about the server.

News

  • Kling to research water sustainability and climate

    Cathy Kling, interim director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, is part of a $4.3 million Water Sustainability and Climate grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a sustainability study framework that will help understand and predict processes and places in the landscape that are most vulnerable to change. Kling joins researchers from six other universities led by the University of Minnesota. Learn more at: www.card.iastate.edu/about/news/show_brief.aspx?id=46

  • Emeritus Professor James Prescott passes

    James Russell Prescott, 77, of Ames, died Wednesday, September 12, 2012, at home. He was an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University. Read more at: http://amestrib.com/sections/obituaries/james-russell-prescott.html#small

  • Hart sees signs for optimism as harvest reaches peak in Iowa

    Although slightly lower than previous projections, last week’s crop yield report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a far cry from the worst-case scenarios many farmers braced for earlier this summer as a withering drought took hold of much of America’s prime farmland. USDA expects corn yields to come in at 122.8 bushels per acre, or about 0.6 bushels less than its August prediction. Despite the downward adjustment, the projections paint a much rosier picture than the 110 bushels per acre many farmers feared they would get at the height of the drought.


    Department of Economics grain Extension economist Chad Hart adds his perspective in an ISU News Service article written by Fred Love. Read the full article at: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2012/09/18/harvest2012

  • Friday's department seminar: Christopher Otrok, University of Missouri

    "News Shocks and the Slope of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," with Christopher M. Otrok, University of Missouri, on Friday, September 28, 3:40 PM, 368A Heady Hall.

    Christopher Otrok is currently a professor and the Sam B. Cook chair in Economics at the University of Missouri. He is also a research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis and Co-Editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Before moving to Missouri he was a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. Otrok has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Minneapolis, New York and Philadelphia. He has also been a consultant to the IMF and has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to lecture at CERGE-EI in Prague. His work has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of International Economics, International Economic Review, Review of Economic Dynamics, Journal of Applied Econometrics and European Economic Review. Otrok earned his PhD in Economics in 1999 from the University of Iowa.

    Abstract: We adopt a statistical approach to identify the shocks that explain most of the fluctuations of the slope of the termstructure of interest rates. We find that one single shock can explain the majority of all unpredictable movements in the slope over a 10-year forecast horizon. Impulse response functions lead us to interpret this shock as news about future total factor productivity (TFP). We confirm this interpretation formally by identifying a TFP news shock following recent work by Barsky and Sims (2011). By showing that the 'slope shock' and the 'TFP news shock' are closely related, we provide a new explanation for the relationship between the slope of the term structure and macroeconomic fundamentals and for why the yield curve is one of the most reliable predictors of future economic growth. Our results also provide a new empirical benchmark for structural models at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance.

  • Graduate Student News & Updates

    Ruiqing Miao graduated from the Department of Economics with a PhD in the spring of 2012. He is currently at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working as a postdoc research associate for Energy Biosciences Institute with Dr. Madhu Khanna. 

    He participates in ongoing research that aims to understand the economic incentives for producing biofuel crops under risk and uncertainties, the design of contractual arrangements and policies to promote adoption, and the economic, environmental and land use implications of biofuel production.

  • Thursday's Human Resources Workshop: Jesse Strzok, ISU

    Jesse Strzok will present Thursday's Human Resources Workshop at 3:40 PM in 360 Heady Hall.

Graduate Student Announcements

Funding Opportunities

Job Opportunities

  • University of South Alabama – Visiting Instructor/Assisting Professor of Economics
  • Research position in sustainability assessment - FEEM

    FEEM, a leading research institute on sustainable development (www.feem.it) is looking to recruit a motivated and talented researcher to cover an open position within the Climate Change and Sustainable Development Research Programme.

    The selected applicant will join a team engaged in analysing a wide range of issues regarding sustainability, climate and energy economics. He/she will have the opportunity to conduct research on sustainability assessment and applied research in a wide range of environmental economics (constructing sustainability indices, expert elicitation and decision making under uncertainty, energy demand models and their applications , analysing forest fires, etc.).

    Requirements: Applicants should have (or be close to completion of) a Ph.D. in economics or econometrics possibly coupled with a background in mathematics. They should also have experience in conducting applied economic and/or econometric research using both analytical and numerical methods. Knowledge of software such as R, Matlab, Gauss and Stata is required. Expertise on the construction of indices and economic CGE modelling is preferred.

    The selected applicant will interact with researchers of different nationalities and have the opportunity to present scientific papers at a number of conferences and workshops.

    FEEM offers a truly interdisciplinary workplace and has strong ties to a worldwide network of research institutions engaged in environmental research and in particular on the analysis of climate change issues.

    The selected applicant is expected to begin his/her assignment in 2012. The period of the research position can last up to 3 years, with an evaluation after the first year. Gross salary is competitive and will be based on qualification and experience. Research will be carried out at the FEEM premises in Venice, Italy.

    Application requirements: Applicants should send a detailed curriculum vitae, a job market paper (an authored or co-authored paper which demonstrates the applicant’s skills relevant to the topic of the position), and at least one letter of recommendation to: Monica Eberle (monica.eberle@feem.it).

  • CES Director position at Purdue
  • Tenure-track assistant professor at University of Wisconsin/River falls

Papers and Presentations

  • Recent presentation by Leigh Tesfatsion

    Leigh Tesfatsion (plus five collaborators from Sandia National Laboratories), "Energy and Reserve Procurement Through Linked Forward Markets: Safe Harbor for the Promised Land," Department of Energy (DOE), Washington D.C., 9-1:00pm, September 17, 2012.

    In this four-hour talk the presenters proposed a practical and conceptually consistent market design reformulation for U.S. ISO/RTO-managed wholesale electric power market operations. Representatives from the Energy Storage Systems Program (DOE), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (DOE), KEMA, PJM, and ISO-NE participated in this meeting. The reported work is supported by a collaborative grant from the DOE to ISU and Sandia National Laboratories for an Ancillary Services Market Design (ASMD) Project. Deung-Yong Heo (ISU Econ PhD student) and Sean Mooney (ISU CS PhD student) are research assistants on the ASMD project, working under the direction of ISU Principal Investigator Leigh Tesfatsion.