An annual review of manufacturing by the ISU Extension and Outreach Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) shows manufacturing employment increased 2.5 percent in 2011 from the previous year. However, employment in this sector is still 10 percent lower than pre-recession levels in 2007.

Liesl Eathington, assistant scientist with the Department of Economics, and author of the review, says that in the past year "we look to be gaining back some of the jobs we lost during the recession." Read the full article by ISU News Service reporter Angie Hunt at: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2013/01/11/manufacturingreview

Juan Carlos Cordoba, associate professor in the Department of Economics, has recently published an article entitled, "What Explains Schooling Differences Across Countries?" in The Journal of Monetary Economics. The article's co-author is Marla Ripoll, University of Pittsburg. View at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2012.12.005

Kayla Reiter is the fall 2012 winner of the Leadership Excellence Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University. The award acknowledges strength of leadership and academic excellence amongst students in the agricultural college.

Reiter majored in agricultural business in the Department of Economics, with additional minors in agronomy, international agriculture, and general business. She graduated in December 2012. While at Iowa State she was involved in Mortar Board, served as a CALS Ambassador, was a member of the award winning Agricultural Business Club, a member of Sigma Alpha, was the secretary of the honorary fraternity Alpha Zeta, and for two years was a peer mentor to incoming students who transferred to Iowa State to major in agricultural business.

She came to Iowa State as a transfer student from the University of Northern Iowa where she majored in business, motivated by a desire to focus on agriculture. “My only regret about ISU was not coming as a freshman,” said Reiter. “It’s a big university, but it doesn’t feel big – especially in the agricultural college where everyone makes you feel like you’re at home.”

Reiter has accepted a full-time position with the Iowa Soybean Association, managing member outreach for the eastern third of Iowa. She will continue to live in her hometown of Waterloo.