"Do Food Labels Scare You? What Your Brain Shows," with John Crespi, Kansas State University, Friday, April 19, 3:40 PM-5 PM, 368A Heady Hall.

John Crespi’s research focuses on industrial organization and product differentiation issues in food and agriculture. His interests include product quality differences that affect commodity promotion, food safety regulations, food labeling, and the competitive structure of markets. He has worked as a consultant for several commodity boards performing studies to measure the effectiveness of industry-financed generic advertising. Crespi teaches courses in agribusiness marketing and research methods, as well as a team-taught course in quantitative methods.He received an M.A. in Economics, from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 1994, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural & Resource Economics, from the University of California, Davis, 2000.

Jonathan McFadden is a third year PhD student in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University, and is the recent recipient of the Caine Bogle Family Graduate Fellowship. McFadden will receive $1,000 to partially fund his graduate studies and current research in 2013.

The Caine Bogle Family Graduate Fellowship is set up through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and is awarded to students demonstrating both academic and leadership qualities.

Three of the five seniors awarded the prestigious Wallace E. Barron University Senior Award for 2013 have majors from the Department of Economics.

Those awardees include Moses Bomet, Urbandale, Iowa, who majored in economics; Szuyin Leow, Apple Valley, Minnesota, who majored in economics and Bethany Olson, Jewell, Iowa, who majored in agricultural business. Learn more about each by clicking on their names. Find the full list of awardees at: www.isualum.org/index.cfm?nodeID=7916&audienceID=1

Peter Orazem, Department of Economics, will present the next in a series of Harkin Institute of Public Policy brown bag research lectures on  Friday, April 5, at 11:30 a.m., Catt Hall 302. Orazem will present the following: “Economic Freedom, Human Rights, and the Returns to Human Capital: An Evaluation of the Schultz Hypothesis.” Contact David Peterson ( daveamp@iastate.edu ) for more information.