Spring 2007 News

Professor Edward Kutsoati was interviewed on Voice of America about the diffusion of cell phone technology in Ghana in the article "Text Messages could Mean Money for African Farmers".

Professor Chih Ming Tan's work entitled "Are Any Growth Theories Robust?" was presented at the 2007 Royal Economic Society Conference in Warwick, UK, in April. The paper is currently forthcoming in the Economic Journal. His work on "Threshold Regression with Endogenous Threshold Variables (THRET)" was presented at a special conference celebrating the work of Phoebus Dhrymes in Pafos, Cyprus, in June.

Professor Rajeev Dehejia presented his research at CIDE (Mexico City), The Hebrew University (Jerusalem), Tel Aviv University, and the London School of Economics, and joined the editorial board of the Journal of Human Resources as a coeditor.

Professor David Dapice attended a UNDP-sponsored conference in Cambodia where he presented his work on "Raising Rural Incomes." He also consulted with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Academy of Social Services in Hanoi, Vietnam. In June, Professor Dapice and other academic experts (H. Rogovsky of Harvard and B. Sheppard of Duke) briefed the President of Vietnam and members of the Vietnamese government at a Forum on Higher Education in New York City. The event was covered in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Associated Press, BBC World Services, Voice of America, and numerous other media. In July, Professor Dapice taught at the Fulbright School in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), advised central and local government officials, and visited other educational institutions in Vietnam.

Professors Thomas Downes and Jeffrey Zabel received a contract from MassINC, an independent, nonpartisan research and educational institute, to study the 1993 Education Reform Act of Massachusetts, and assess the impact of the reforms on the distribution of education funding and on the level and distribution of student performance. The research report will be released in September 2008.

Professor Joshua Fischman presented his research on “Decision Making Under a Norm of Consensus: A Structural Analysis of Three-Judge Panels” at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute, Law & Economics Workshop, in July.

Professor Yannis Ioannides co-organized the 6th Conference in Economic Theory and Econometrics, Naxos, Greece, July 9–13^th, where he also presented his research on "Urban Structure, Intercity Trade and Economic Growth." In September Professor Ioannides presented the paper "The Effect of Information and Communication Technologies on Urban Structure" at Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Professors Edward Kutsoati and Margaret McMillan launched the pilot phase of their microfinance research in Ghana. In June, Professors McMillan and Kusoati met with farmers in the Osino region to talk about their credit needs, and worked with Mumuadu Bank to design a loan product including crop price insurance. The pilot phase of the project was launched on August 1 and includes 200 farmers. As of September, almost 70% of the farmers to whom the product was offered have taken a loan. In September, Professors Kutsoati and McMillan, with Hillary Rettig of International Institute of Boston, gave a Boston Cares-sponsored talk about micro credit.

Professor Margaret McMillan presented her research on Profit Sharing Between Governments and Multinationals in Natural Resource Extraction at the Brookings Institution in June. She also presented her work on Food Aid and Poverty at the 2007 American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting (July 29 – August 1) in Portland, Oregon, and her paper “Offshoring Jobs? Multinationals and US Manufacturing Employment” at Yale University’s international trade workshop in September. Professor McMillan’s paper “"My Policies or Yours: How Do Trade-distorting Agricultural Policies Used by Rich Countries Affect Poverty in Developing Countries?" is featured in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008.

Professor Gilbert Metcalf presented his research on the economics of climate change at the Ninth Annual NBER-CCER Conference on China and the World Economy held at Peking University in Beijing in June. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) brings U.S. economists to China to interact with Chinese economists and graduate students at the Chinese Center on Economic Research (CCER), the foremost economics graduate program in China. In July Professor Metcalf was interviewed on SmartMoney.com in the article "New Plan Would Offset Carbon Tax with Payday Savings", and his research was featured in Greg Mankiw's article "One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax" in the New York Times on September 16.

Professor Jay Shimshack presented his research on "Mercury Advisories and Household Health Trade-offs" at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the University of Connecticut, and the University of Colorado's Workshop on Environmental Economics. Professor Shimshack has also been serving as an expert contractor for the USEPA's Enforcement Deterrence Measurement Project.

Professor Enrico Spolaore presented his research on the diffusion of development at the Central Bank of Colombia in July and at a conference organized by the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) and the European Commission’s GARNET network at the University of Warwick, England in September. This summer he also gave a series of lectures on political economy and development at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia), and joined the Scientific Committees of the Colombian journals Desarrolo & Sociedad and Revista de Economia Institucional. On August 28 his research was featured in David Warsh's Economic Principals.

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