FYI: Energy Policy Initiative

NATIONAL ENERGY/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY FOR UNDERGRADUATES:

Amidst devastating oil shocks, President Carter first warned the nation of the impending energy catastrophe facing the United States. More than three decades later, relative inaction by policy-makers has only exacerbated this insecurity. The inability by America's leaders to induce innovation as well as to break America's dependence on fossil fuels now endangers global economic and political stability.

Embracing the urgency of the issue, the Defense and Diplomacy Center of the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network has initiated "The Moral Equivalent of War" project. The intent of the program is to break the stalemate in Washington and deliver a series of short-term, politically moderate policies. The recommendations will be designed to immediately attenuate the energy and environmental threats facing the United States, and to promote future political action.

The project is now accepting resumes from current undergraduates interested in contributing to the publication. In small groups, students will be able to engage critical environmental/energy policy analysis and be published on a national level.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please forward a cover letter and resume to Chris Scanzoni (scanzoni@email.unc.edu) by no later than December 15. 

More and More Jobs: KC Fed

I received two e-mails about different job openings at the Kansas City Fed.  Here is the info:

Job Opportunities in Transportation Economics

We have exciting career opportunities for talented professionals interested in joining our Economic and Industry Analysis division at the Volpe Center http://www.volpe.dot.gov/ located in Kendall Square, Cambridge http://www.kendallsquare.org/.

Recruiter to be on Campus

Cornerstone Research, a finance and economics consulting firm, will be on-campus hosting an information session on Tuesday, October 12 (Brennen Conference Room, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM). Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, resume and unofficial transcript through NACElink AND the Cornerstone Research online application web link by October 13th at 11:59 PM.

Additional information about the firm and the Analyst position is available on their website, http://www.cornerstone.com/careers/xprGeneralContent2.aspx?xpST=CareersAnalystOpportunityDetail.
Their Vault profile is available here: http://www.vault.com/images/eprint/Cornerstone-2011.pdf

Yet Another Job Opportunity

FULL-TIME ECONOMICS RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITION

Economics professors David Laibson (Harvard University), Brigitte Madrian (Harvard University), James Choi (Yale University) and John Beshears (Stanford University) are seeking full-time research assistants who will begin employment during the summer of 2011.  This one-year position entails work on theoretical and empirical research related to savings, investment, and psychological economics.  The research will use field data, experimental data, and hybrid field experiments.

NSF Fellowships

The deadline for applications for NSF Graduate Fellowships for AY 2011–2012 is approaching (mid-November).  And yes there are fellowships for economics and political science.   These three-year awards carry a $30,000 annual stipend, so you should really think about applying for one.  Open to U.S. citizends and permanent residents.  Details can be found here.

Job Opening at St. Louis Fed

The Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has begun recruiting for Research Analysts.   A detailed job description can be found on the Bank’s web site at http://research.stlouisfed.org/jobopps/ranalyst.pdf.  As we currently have one open position, interviews will be ongoing.  Interviews for positions that start in the summer of 2011 will begin in early 2011. 

Don't Panic

If you have visited the Registrar's course schedule, you will have noticed that ACM 118 has been cancelled for the Fall of this coming year.  I am assured that it is scheduled to be taught in the second term (winter 2011).  I will let you know if anything changes.

Post-graduation reception

There will be a reception for all graduates in the social sciences (economics, BEM, political science) and their families after commencement on June 11. It will take place at 3:00 p.m. on the submerged patio at the the north end of Baxter Hall. See you there.

New Courses

We have added some new undergraduate courses for next year.  I think this list is complete, but I could be wrong.  Also, this may be subject to approval by the Faculty Board, so always check with the registrar.

Ec 106. Topics in Industrial Organization. 9 units (3-0-6); first term. Prerequisites: Ec 11, Ec 122 (suggested).  The course covers basic topics in information economics, including auction and search models. For each topic, empirical evidence and applications from the internet will be presented. Econometric topics will also be reviewed where appropriate, including estimation of demand functions and instrumental variables.  Instructor: Shum.  [This is a new description.]

Ec/SS 124. Introduction to Empirical Process Methods. 9 units (3-0-6); second term. Prerequisites: Ec 122. Standard estimators (e.g., maximum likelihood estimators) of parameters in econometric models optimize smooth criterion functions.  Inference is typically based on asymptotic approximations which exploit smoothness. New estimators have been developed that optimize non-smooth criterion functions, and for which standard analysis does not apply. This course develops tools needed to do asymptotic inference with such estimators--moment maximal inequalities for empirical processes (standardized averages). We show how to apply these methods to analyze various recent estimators. Instructor: Sherman.

BEM 104. Investments. 9 units (3-0-6); second term. Prerequisites: BEM 103, some familiarity with statistics. Ec 11 recommended. Examines the theory of financial decision making and statistical techniques useful in analyzing financial data. Topics include: portfolio selection, equilibrium security pricing, empirical analysis of equity securities, fixed-income markets, market efficiency, and risk management. Instructor: Gillen.

BEM 111. Risk Management. 9 units (3-0-6); third term. Prerequisites: BEM 103, BEM 105.  An introduction to financial risk management. Concepts of Knightian risk and uncertainty; coherent risk; and commonly used metrics for risk. Techniques for estimating equity risk; volatility; correlation; interest rate risk; and credit risk are described. Discussions of fat-tailed (leptokurtic) risk, scenario analysis, and regime-switching methods provide an introduction to methods for dealing with risk in extreme environments.  Instructor: Winston.

BEM/Ec 187. Corporation Finance and Financial Intermediaries. 9 units (3-0-6); third term. Prerequisites: Ec 11, BEM 103. The course will cover the institutions, problems, and methods encountered financing business and public enterprises.  After reviewing the classical theory of corporation finance, we will consider the information and tax problems facing firms seeking financing, how the need for financial intermediation arises, the process of issuing securities, IPOs, and the sources of financial crises.  Implications for both corporate and public policy will be discussed. Instructor: Green.

Visiting Faculty

One of the ways universities speed the diffusion of knowledge is through the practice of hosting visiting faculty members.  Here are some of our visitors for AY 2010–2011.

Rabah Amir, the Eller Professor of Economics of at the University of Arizona, will teach Ec 105 (Industrial Organization) in the winter.

Richard Green is the Richard M. and Margaret S. Cyert Professor of Economics and Management in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.  He will teach a new course, BEM/Ec 187 (Corporation Finance and Financial Intermediaries), in the spring. BEM 103 is a prerequisite.

Chris Shannon, Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, will be a visiting Moore Scholar next year, probably in the fall.  She will not have any teaching responsibilities.

Ken Winston is the Chief Risk Officer for Western Asset Management. He has a B.S. from Caltech (1973) and a Ph.D. from MIT in mathematics.  He will teach a new course, BEM 111 (Risk Management), in the spring.  Prerequisites are are BEM 103 and 105.

Faculty Comings and Goings

Previously I mentioned the semi-retirement of Professor Grether. There will be a number of other changes to the faculty over the summer.

Departures:
Several members of the social science faculty will be leaving at the end of this academic year.  Wish them bon voyage.

Chris Chambers is leaving to join the department of economics at the University of California, San Diego.

Jacob Goeree, who has been on leave this year, is leaving for the University of Zürich.

Matias Iaryczower is leaving to join the department of politics at Princeton University.

Matt Spitzer is leaving to join the law school at the University of Texas (Austin).

Arrivals:
We have hired two new members of the economics faculty who will start next fall:

Marina Agranov will be coming to us as an assistant professor with a Ph.D. from NYU.  Marina's interests are economic theory, political economy and political science, experimental and behavioral economics

Ben Gillen will also be coming to us as an assistant professor with his Ph.D. from UCSD. Ben's interests are in applied econometrics, industrial organization, financial economics, game theory, and behavioral economics.

More to come?

We still have two offers outstanding, so we may have even more arrivals by fall.  Soon I will let you know about visiting faculty next year,and also about new courses, and schedule anomalies.

Seniors: I'd like to hear from you

Seniors, I personally would like to hear from you over the next few months about what you're doing, and perhaps your junior colleagues would as well.  Just leave a comment about where you are and what you're up to, and maybe how to reach you.

Thanks,
KCB

David Grether to be promoted to Professor Emeritus

David Grether, the Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Economics, is being promoted to Professor Emeritus at the end of the academic year, which is academic-speak for semi-retiring.  That is, Dave will continue to have an office and do his thing, but he will no longer teach and no longer draw a salary.  (The term emeritus is Latin for "fully merited" and was originally applied to retired Roman soldiers.)

Dave earned his B.S. at the University of California, spent some time in the U.S. Army, and earned his Ph.D. at Stanford. After a brief stint at Yale he came to Caltech in 1970.  I first met him in Alan Sweezy's macroeconomics class in 1971 or '72.  We had been told by Professor Sweezy that there would be a guest lecturer, so I was not too surprised to find that a very young and sleep-deprived-appearing graduate student from another department showed up to attend.  It turns out I was wrong—the apparent graduate student was actually Professor Grether, who proceeded to talk about the identification problem in econometrics.

Dave's dissertation was in time-series econometrics, but his interests were much broader than that.  He collaborated with John Ferejohn and Charles Plott on social choice theory in the early 1970s and in the the late 1970s he and Plott conducted experiments on how real people update their beliefs when given new information, making him a pioneer in what later became known as "behavioral economics."  Dave was also a pioneer in what later became known as "neuroeconomics," when he began using fMRI to study subjects making decisions under uncertainty.  His work was the first (or maybe the second, I'm not sure) to use fMRI to study economic decision making.  I recall the excitement that Dave exhibited when he showed off some brain scans and said, more or less, "We've found greed."

Dave also served as Chairman of the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences from 1982 to 1992 and again in 2006–2007, making him the third longest-serving chair, after Clinton Judy and Hallett Smith.

On a personal level, Dave is also known for his thriftiness and his quick and extremely dry wit.  He is also a fan of the Golden Bears.

Job Opening

Full-time Position – Beginning Immediately

Research Coordinator – Center for Excellence in Accounting and Security Analysis at Columbia Business School

FYI: Columbia U's Master in Mathematics of Finance

Columbia University is still accepting applications to its Masters in Mathematics of Finance.  The deadline is May 31.  For details see http://www.math.columbia.edu/programs/main/mafin

FYI: Study/Internship at Georgetown: Deadline June 1

I have been asked to forward this to you. This is a commercial message. This post does not constitute an endorsement of this program.

CAPITAL SEMESTER August 28 – December 11, 2010 Georgetown University , Washington , DC www.DCinternships.org/CS
Fall 2010 Application Deadline: June 1, 2010

Sponsored by The Fund for American Studies, the Capital Semester program combines a substantive professional experience in public policy, international affairs or economics for 25 hours a week with a challenging academic experience at Georgetown University.

Public Lecture on the Financial Crisis

Brad Cornell will give two public lectures as part of the Citizens Business Bank and CitizensTrust Distinguished Lectures on Economics and Finance, at 8:00 pm on Thursday, April 29 and Thursday, May 20.   The topics are:

Job for Graduating Seniors; Also Summer Internships

The Bureau of Economics of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has openings for full-time economic research analysts to assist our Ph.D. economists in antitrust and consumer protection investigations. We also have openings for paid summer economic interns.

Are economics students happier?

FYI: Justus Haucap and Ulrich Heimeshoff reported in their paper "The Happiness of Economists: Estimating the Causal Effect of Studying Economics on Subjective Well-Being" that economics students are happier than other students in the social sciences.

FYI: Fellowship at Hong Kong Polytechnic University

FYI:  I am passing along this fellowship announcement at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

New Job Opportunity for Seniors: March 31 Deadline

Yale Law School

Research Assistant

Job Description: 

The research assistant will provide research support to Professor John J. Donohue at Yale Law School.  Professor Donohue will be visiting at Stanford Law School next year, so this position will be at Stanford starting this summer at a date to be determined.  This is an excellent opportunity for those considering law or graduate school in the future.  This is a full-time position that requires a commitment of at least one year and offers competitive benefits and compensation.

Job Opportunity for Graduating Seniors

Columbia Business School
Research Coordinator


Columbia Business School seeks a Research Coordinator to assist Business School faculty in their conduct of academic research and special projects for the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate.

This position will be available starting mid-July 2010.
 

Recent Changes in Option Requirements

In the last year we made a number of changes to the option requirements for economics.  The new requirements mostly add flexibility, but we did require one additional course.  The main requirements beyond Ec 11 are organized into categories:

Subscribe by e-mail

You can now subscribe via e-mail.  
Click here.

Better Late Than Never: Social Science Faculty on Video

A number of social science faculty members have given Watson Lectures that are available on Caltech's Streaming Theater.  Here are some of the past ones.

Internship Available: Deadline Feb 26, 2010

The Sonoma County Economic Development Board Program Development Internship provides recent college graduates with a remarkable opportunity to gain practical experience and make substantive contributions in program development, policy analysis, project management, and research in the field of economic development.

Each year, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board offers five one-year paid internships that run from approximately July 15, 2010 to June 30, 2011.

Welcome

Welcome to the Undergraduate Option Representative for Economics web log.

I will use this to communicate information that I receive that is of interest to economics majors, and perhaps to BEM and political science majors.

If you are an economics major, I urge you to subscribe to the blog.