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Announcements for Friday, November 2, 2012

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  • Duffy and Edwards honored with Extension award

    Mike Duffy and William Edwards were recently honored with the Research and Extension Partnership Award through Extension, for their work on land value, cash rents, and custom rate surveys.

    These surveys are are some of the most highly requested information provided by ISU Extension and Outreach, and the data in them helps researchers and Extension clientele to improve their understanding of the forces impacting land and to efficiently use resources.

    Says Edwards, "Every day Mike Duffy and I, as well as the Extension farm management field specialists utilize the information from the Iowa land value, farmland cash rent, and farm custom rate surveys to help answer questions from farmers, landowners and farm managers around Iowa and in other states. This award recognizes the value of these applied research initiatives for making the markets for farmland and machinery services operate more efficiently."

    Pictured in the photo left to right is Cathann Kress, Vice-President for Extension and Outreach, Mike Duffy, and William Edwards.

  • Swenson and Eathington's work on sustainable economies honored

    The Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) is the recent recipient of an award for "Excellence in Research and Analysis" from the University Economic Development Association. CIRAS received the award for their work on the Sustainable Economies Program, which has enabled regional trade centers in rural Iowa to receive information, tools, and mentoring to develop plans for strategic growth.

    Dave Swenson, associate scientist with the Department of Economics, and Liesl Eathington, director of IPIC, have worked as part of the CIRAS team and have contributed to the Sustainable Economies Program. Through their role, they identified and operationalized sustainability indicators for the project, and also developed a user-friendly system to portray them.

    "This project serves non-metro counties containing a central city of 5,000 to 49,999 residents serving as an important employment, trade, and service hub for the surrounding economy," says Eathington. "Thus far, we have selected four regional trade centers for in-depth technical assistance on this project: Carroll County, Lee County, Appanoose County, and Cerro Gordo County. For each, we produced detailed economic and industrial analysis in addition to the sustainability indicators. Our research helps to establish a baseline from which community development strategic planning can be based, and against which future progress can be measured."

    Learn more about CIRAS and the recent honor at: www.extension.iastate.edu/article/sustainable-economies-program-iowa-state-receives-national-award

  • Monday's Department Seminar: Jason Shogren, University of Wyoming

    "The Experimental Mindset within Various Applied Fields of Economics," with Jason Shogren, University of Wyoming. Monday, November 5, 3:40 pm - 5:00 pm, 368A Heady Hall.

    Jason Shogren is the Stroock Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management and Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming, his alma mater. He works on the economics of environmental and natural resource policy. Shogren is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and has served as professor to the King of Sweden, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and as a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House. He likes music and fishing.

    Abstract: Over the last two decades my research has used experimental economics to examine questions in applied micro policy, specifically focusing on how economics can help provide more environmental protection at less cost. The goal has been to explore how to create more effective incentive mechanisms and increase social well-being by a deeper understanding of the behavioral underpinnings of environmental policy. Environmental policy might well be more cost-effective if we understand the power and limits of rational choice models given institutional design and bounded rationality, self-interest, and willpower. The talk will review the general midset of experimental economics and discuss five experiments on the oath, social isolation, interval values, strategic self-ignorance, and TSARs.

  • Tuesday's Department Seminar: Scott Irwin, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana

    "Bubbles, Food Prices, and Speculation: Evidence from the CFTC’s Daily Large Trader Data Files," with Scott Irwin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Monday, November 6, 3:40 PM-5:30 PM, 368A Heady Hall.

    Scott Irwin's research on agricultural marketing and price analysis, commodity market efficiency, and speculation in commodity markets is widely-cited by other academic researchers and in high demand among market participants, policy-makers, and the media. He has produced over 200 scholarly publications in his career, with numerous articles in the leading academic journals of his field. Irwin’s research and outreach programs have had a significant and positive impact on the agricultural community. Irwin is co-director of AgMAS, a nationally-recognized project that provides performance evaluations of agricultural market advisory services. He serves as the team leader of farmdoc, an award-winning Extension program that provides comprehensive risk management information and analysis for farmers and agribusinesses in the United States. Recently, Irwin led the effort to create farmgate, a sister-site designed to integrate, synthesize, and summarize the information available to Midwest farmers and agribusinesses across the spectrum of agricultural disciplines. Irwin has made important contributions to the international debate on the role of speculators in commodity futures markets.

    He earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business at Iowa State University, and both an M.S. and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics at Purdue University. Irwin joined the faculty of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at The Ohio State University in 1985. He was named the Francis B. McCormick Professor of Agricultural Marketing and Policy at Ohio State in 1996. In 1997, he joined the faculty of the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois; he was named the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing in 2004.

    Abstract: The “Masters Hypothesis” is the claim that unprecedented buying pressure from new financial index investors created a massive bubble in agricultural futures prices at various times in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the market impact of financial index investment in agricultural futures markets using non-public data from the Large Trader Reporting System (LTRS) maintained by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The LTRS data are superior to publicly-available data because commodity index trader (CIT) positions are available on a daily basis, positions are disaggregated by contract maturity, and positions before 2006 can be reliably estimated. Bivariate Granger causality tests use CIT positions in terms of both the change in aggregate new net flows into index investments and the rolling of existing index positions from one contract to another. The null hypothesis of no impact of aggregate CIT positions on daily returns is rejected in only 3 of the 12 markets. Point estimates of the cumulative impact of a one standard deviation increase in CIT positions on daily returns are negative and very small, averaging only about two basis points. The null hypothesis that CIT positions do not impact daily returns in a data-defined roll period is rejected in 5 of the 12 markets and estimated cumulative impacts are negative in all 12 markets; the opposite of the expected outcome if CIT rolling activity simultaneously pressures nearby prices downward and first deferred prices upward. Overall, the results add to the growing body of literature showing that buying pressure from financial index investment in recent years did not cause massive bubbles in agricultural futures prices.

  • Thursday's Human Resources Workshop: Sheetal Sekhri, University of Virginia

    "Does Academic Peer Quality Promote Solidarity? Evidence from Caste Based Peer Effects in India," with Sheetal Sekhri, University of Virginia. Thursday, November 8, 3:40 PM-5 PM, 368A Heady Hall.

    Dr. Sekhri is Giorgio Ruffolo Research Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University and an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia. She received her PhD in Development Economics from Brown University (2008) and her B.S. in economics from Iowa State (2002). Her research interests focus on the consequences of groundwater scarcity in developing countries and market and non-market mechanisms that can promote groundwater conservation. Sheetal’s work explores what institutions and incentives can promote the adoption of water saving technologies and practices in agriculture. Sheetal is contributing to collaborative work with the Initiative on Public-Private Partnerships to Promote Sustainable Development in India led by Professor Rohini Pande. She is a fellow of the International Growth Centre’s India Country Team. Her previous work in India includes studies that establish a causal link between poverty, conflict, and groundwater scarcity and examine the role of power subsidies and political incentives in accelerating groundwater depletion. She has studied the link between public provision of groundwater and water-tables. In a related project, she will also use observational data to explore the effects of agricultural trade promotion on ground water. She is also collaborating with a non-profit organization in Rajasthan, India to examine how water scarcity influences the lives of rural women and girls from an economic and a social perspective.

    Abstract: This paper investigates whether academic peer quality in colleges reduces social distance between castes in India by examining academic peer effects across castes. Using cutoff based admission rules and a unique data set linking admission data to college exit exam scores; I find that the better quality of high-caste students has a negative e ect on the performance of the low-caste students. The peer quality of the low-caste students also negatively affects high-caste students, with more pronounced effects on high achievers. These findings suggest that college environment does not succeed at reducing caste-based social barriers.

  • Weekly Media Connections for the Department of Economics

    Mike Duffy spoke with the DM Register, Reuters news service, WHO radio in DM, and WNEX radio from Sioux Falls, SD on the high priced land sale in NW Iowa.

    Ann Johanns was a guest on IPR’s Talk of Iowa, talking about a study on crop rotations.

    Dave Swenson spoke with Canada's Sun News Network (Ontario) on the economy in Iowa and the Des Moines Register’s recent endorsement of Romney for president. Additional contacts:

    • Jennifer Jacobs, DMR, on a response to Romney's speech regarding the diversion of funding from Medicare under the Affordable Care Act.
    • Participant in a Youth Vote broadcast originating at Wartburg College, fielding questions on government debt and unemployment.
    • Guest on the Trent Rice show on KASI radio, talking about the election and the economy, and the impact of disasters on economic growth.

Funding Opportunities

  • AFRI Foundational RFA and conference call Nov. 9
  • USAID-NSF Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) Science

    PEER Science is a competitive grants program that invites scientists in developing countries to apply for funds to support research and capacity-building activities on topics of importance to USAID and conducted in partnership with NSF-funded collaborators.

    Proposals due Dec. 4, 2012. It is expected that solicitations for PEER Science will be issued at least annually. Single institution awards: $30,000 to $60,000 per year for one to three years. Multiple institution and/or multiple countries awards may receive up to $110,000 per year for up to three years. Funds may be used only to support costs for developing country researchers and institutions. Only PIs from developing countries are eligible to apply and must

    1. be affiliated with and based at an academic, non-profit, or government-managed research institution in a PEER Science-eligible country, and

    2. either be actively engaged or plan to be engaged in a collaborative research project with an NSF-funded U.S. researcher at a U.S. institution

    Areas in which NSF and USAID have strong mutual interests include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Food security topics such as agricultural development, fisheries, and plant genomics
    • Climate change impacts such as water sustainability, hydrology, ocean acidification, climate process and modeling, and environmental engineering
    • Other development topics including disaster mitigation, biodiversity, water, and renewable energy

    Proposals in these topical areas of interest may be submitted by applicants based in any of the 87 full PEER Science-eligible countries. Additionally, PEER Science invites proposals from applicants in the following specific countries or working on the following topical areas, for which USAID missions and offices have allocated resources to foster science and development goals: Indonesia, Biodiversity Conservation and Clean Energy in the Philippines, Water for the Middle East and North Africa, Biodiversity Research in the Lower Mekong, Maldives Climate Change Adaptation, and Biodiversity Conservation in Brazil.

Job Opportunities

  • University of Helsinki – assistant professor on population aging & social consequences

    The Faculty of Social Sciences is the most diverse faculty in its field as well as the largest unit focusing on research and teaching in the social sciences in Finland (http://www.helsinki.fi/socialsciences/). The tenure-track position will be located in the Department of Social Research (http://www.helsinki.fi/socialresearch/), which encompasses the disciplines of sociology, social psychology, social work, media and communication studies, statistics, and social and public policy. The appointee will work within the discipline of sociology, in the specialist option of demography, and as a member of the Centre for Population, Health and Society (CPHS).

    The duties of the assistant professor will include research, teaching and supervision of theses and dissertations in the field, as well as involvement in administrative tasks and support, and community relations. The duties also include participation in undergraduate- and postgraduate-level education in demography.

    The appointee’s previous research, teaching and supervision must relate to the social scientific debate on population aging in the developed countries. He or she must also provide proof of an ability to conduct quantitative research of a high international standard. Special merit will be given for previous research that supplements and connects with one or several themes in which the CPHS research community (http://blogs.helsinki.fi/cphs-helsinki/) has solid expertise and know-how. The appointee must have published internationally and is expected to acquire external funding for the research projects under his or her leadership.

    Applications must be accompanied by the following English-language documents: a CV, a list of publications, a report on experience and merits relevant to assessing the applicant’s teaching skills as well as other documents that may be relevant to the selection; or, alternatively, an English-language academic portfolio containing the above-mentioned documents and information (for instructions, see http://www.helsinki.fi/socialsciences/administration/positions/portfolio...).

    In addition, applicants are requested to enclose with their application a report (max. two pages, in English) on how they intend to develop research in the field, if appointed. Applicants are kindly asked to be ready, upon request from the Faculty, to submit for assessment the 10 publications indicated on their list of publications after the application period. The publications must be submitted via email as PDF files.

    Applications addressed to the Faculty of Social Sciences must be delivered, together with the required enclosures, to the following address: Registry of the University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 33 (Yliopistonkatu 4), 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, or by email to hy-kirjaamo@helsinki.fi. The application period ends on the 30th of November 2012 (The Registry closes at 15.45 local Helsinki time.)

    Further information about the position may be obtained from Professor Pekka Martikainen, pekka.martikainen@helsinki.fi, +358 44 286 1946. www.helsinki.fi/university

  • University of California at Santa Barbara – assistant professor positions