Professor Of Economics Research Articles

Retrospectives: Friedman and Schwartz, Disaggregated

What was the contribution of Anna Schwartz to the landmark book she co-authored with Milton Friedman, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960? A close examination of archival evidence suggests three primary contributions Schwartz made to the work, and to Friedman’s career more generally. The first was meeting the classic challenge of quantitative economic history: going into the field to locate and collect archival data that had been assembled for purposes unrelated to economic research, and deciding how best to use that data. Second, Schwartz had a decades-long role as technical sounding board and shaper of the statistical approach taken in the book. Schwartz’s third and arguably greatest contribution was to transform A Monetary History of the United States into a compelling narrative argument that made an impact far beyond the economics profession. Together, these findings show Schwartz to be a scholar who made significant and lasting contributions to monetary economics, economic history, and the broader field of economics.

Undergraduate journals and conferences: Pathways to understanding the economics profession

The Issues in Political Economy (IPE) journal and related conference sessions were established in the early 1990s as outlets for undergraduates to present and publish peer-reviewed research in economics. By providing opportunities to attend and present at professional conferences, referee papers, and edit journal issues, IPE reflects authentic practices within the profession. In this article, the authors describe the benefits that accrue to students who participate in the public dissemination of research, explain how IPE operates, offer some descriptive evidence of its success over the years, and conclude by describing how several departments have leveraged IPE to complement their curricula and build sustainable cultures of undergraduate research at their institutions.

REVIEW ON THE EMERGENCE OF A TRADITION: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JESÚS HUERTA DE SOTO, EDITED BY DAVID HOWDEN AND PHILIPP BAGUS (VOL 1 MONEY AND THE MARKET PROCESS; VOL. 2 PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY). PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 2023

Jesús Huerta de Soto who is professor of economics at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid is the leading representative of the Austrian school of economics in Spain. He is a renowned teacher and two of his many doctoral students David Howden and Philipp Bagus both now themselves professors of economics have edited a festschrift in his honor. The contributors include students, colleagues, friends, teachers, two of his daughters, and his son. The two-volume festschrift contains many valuable essays, but I cannot do more here than comment on a few of them, as there are no less than twenty-seven essays in the first volume and twenty-four in the second as well as two introductory essays by the editors “Jesús Huerta de Soto: A Biographical Sketch” in the first volume and “Jesús Huerta de Soto: An Appreciation” in the second.

A History of the Eastern Economic Association: 50 Years of Finding Space for Pluralism and Inclusion in Economics

AbstractDrawing on archival data and oral histories, this paper examines the history of the Eastern Economic Association from its beginnings in 1974 to its 50th anniversary in 2024. It sheds light on the ideological, social, and political motivations behind the EEA’s founding, focusing on its commitment to addressing the narrowness of the economics profession and the marginalization of women and underrepresented minorities. It also documents some of the problems that the Eastern Economic Association and the Eastern Economic Journal faced over time and how they have resolved these problems. Based on this history and analysis, the paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the EEA’s enduring impact on the field of economics and its continuing relevance in fostering a more inclusive and pluralistic academic community.

What leads to a professorship in German economics? A longitudinal analysis of tenure determinants (1984–2021)

ABSTRACT This study uses event history analysis to show what promotes tenure in German economics, utilizing a unique and virtually complete national dataset that includes 70,657 publications from 3955 economists, of which 1196 received tenure between 1984 and 2021. While existing theories emphasize that gender discrimination, parenthood, human capital, academic prestige, and social capital explain who is tenured, no study has thus far evaluated these factors concurrently across an entire national population of economists. Our findings reveal that fewer women receive tenure than would be expected based on their representation in the candidate pool. However, gender, parenthood, and non-reviewed publications do not significantly influence tenure attainment after controlling for covariates. Instead, mobility, accessing advanced career stages, and peer-reviewed journal articles are most strongly related to receiving tenure. Independently of productivity, academic prestige, such as receiving grants and awards, also impacts tenure prospects significantly, as does social capital, measured through research mobility, interim professorships and co-authorships. Being affiliated with prestigious universities shows minimal effects on receiving tenure, however. These findings imply that mobility, moving up career stages and being productive by publishing peer-reviewed journal articles are the strongest determinants of becoming a tenured economics professor in Germany.

Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the Economics Profession

Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the Economics Profession

Capital is not a factor of production but organizes the allocation and distribution of resources in capitalism

AbstractEconomists usually define capital as a factor of production—roughly speaking, as physical equipment. This paper demonstrates the limits of this common approach and develops a meaningful alternative. In actual business life, capital refers to the monetary value of business assets, regardless of what the assets consist of, and as such, it is an important aspect of economic calculations that helps to guide entrepreneurial activities. In this sense, capital is pervasive in capitalist societies. Virtually all goods and services are produced by profit-oriented enterprises. Natural resources, intermediate goods, and finished products all appear on the balance sheets of enterprises and are consequently part of business capital. Likewise, the majority of people are employees of enterprises. They receive their pay because the employing firms consider this to be a profitable investment of their capital. Despite its extreme practical importance, this business notion of capital is ignored by nearly the entire economics profession. The paper shows how economists could profit from adopting the business notion of capital, irrespective of their ideological backgrounds.

Bioadministration: A Concept for Analyzing Human and Non-Human Organism Interaction in Organizational Studies within the Context of Longevity

Embark on a thought-provoking exploration with us as we delve into the fascinating world of bio-administration—a convergence point where the intricacies of biology intersect with the dynamics of organizational management. Authored by an interdisciplinary team comprising the vision of an oncologist, on guidance of an economics professor and a public administration professor, this article sheds light on the emerging concept of bio-administration and its implications for organizational theory and practice. From the fundamental workings of life to the complex structures of human society, join us on this insightful journey as we uncover the synergies between biology and organizational dynamics.

Minorities, Women, and Radicals in the Discipline of Economics

The discipline of economics is informally managed in the United States by the American Economic Association (AEA). The AEA’s management of the economics community however was challenged starting in the 1960s by blacks, women, and radicals. Blacks, women, and radical economists each adopted a different strategy towards achieving greater empowerment in the discipline. Black economists created the Caucus of Black Economists and participated in the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession to encourage that steps be taken towards affirmative action and create a space for the publication of black economic research. Women economists participated in the AEA’s Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession in 1971 to document the number of women in the economics profession, create a network of women economists and those supporting their work, and publish a newsletter containing statistics on representation within the profession and a listing of job openings and candidate availability. Radical economists created the Union for Radical Political Economics in 1968 to serve as a scholarly home for those holding non-mainstream beliefs and undertake the publication of a research journal, and sought some degree of solace from the AEA’s Committee on Political Discrimination. In the documentation of the different approaches taken by these groups, it becomes clear that there is no optimal inclusion strategy and that the barriers to being a recognized economist remain 50 years later.

Economics Peer-Review: Problems, Recent Developments, and Reform Proposals

This article contributes to the debate on reforming the peer-review process in the economics profession. It examines the current state of peer-review in economics, surveys the relevant literature, and identifies several problems and solutions. Problems to be discussed are referee overreach and excessive revisions, strategic refereeing and conflicts of interest, prestige bias and other discrimination, and the noisy outcome of peer-review. It recommends several solutions for reform. First, enforce referee guidelines that referee reports must explicitly separate their suggestions into essential and optional, with 3 essential maximum. Second, let authors award the best referee report. Third, adopt conflict of interest policies for referees and punish non-disclosure. Fourth, use double-blind refereeing. Fifth, make better use of prior reports from other journals. Sixth, pay referees for prompt reports. A discussion of the role of editors highlights additional issues that deserve a debate in the profession.

Wassily Leontief's Research Program: Science, Beliefs, Institutions

Wassily Leontief met with decades of success for the development of input-output analysis, and yet he remained a staunch critic of the economics profession throughout his life. To understand his success, its limits, and the origins of his discontent, this article separates the scientific activities of input-output from the system of belief built around it, and from the institutions set up to advance Leontief's research program. This leads to considering the interaction of input-output with other research programs through three poles: the scientific debate, the collision of belief systems about the world, and an institutional fight for funds and researchers. The end result is a picture of how Leontief managed to build a successful research program in which scientific inquiry led to beliefs about the world that were able to justify building institutions promoting input-output, in an environment of competition and cooperation.

Exploring the Dutch Bruynzeel Kitchen Through the Negotiations of Its Two Designers, Limperg and Zwart

During the interwar period, numerous endeavours were made to develop a rational kitchen, also called a laboratory kitchen, namely one that prioritised labour-saving efficiency through thoughtful layout and design. Catherine Beecher's work is often credited as its starting point. By synthesising household reformers' experiences and architects’ design expertise, scholars have extensively examined how rational kitchens evolved. This paper discusses the conception of the standardised Dutch Bruynzeel Kitchen (1938) by the collaborative efforts of two designers with distinct yet complementary interior design profiles. Renowned Dutch designer Piet Zwart, widely recognised for his contributions, finalised the technical drawings and promotional materials for this iconic kitchen. Less acknowledged is the early involvement of Dutch architect Koen Limperg, son of a business economics professor, who drew the preliminary designs. Interestingly, this kitchen design was developed while body culture emerged in the Netherlands. Complementing already existing research from art history, anthropology, the history of technology, and gender studies, this paper, based on literature and archive research, investigates through an interior design lens how both designers integrated their respective practices and expertise into the Bruynzeel Kitchen's design, incorporating elements of physical activities (dance, gym, sports) and household economics.

An organizing protocol for society’s approach at responding to climate change

An organizing protocol for society’s approach at responding to climate change Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus Gary Yohe argues that adopting an iterative risk management approach is the most effective way when responding to climate change uncertainties. The issue at hand is easily expressed: How might society effectively organize its thinking as it ponders how to respond to climate change impacts and their consequences in the face of enormous uncertainty? That is, what thought protocol would be best, not only because it would provide the ‘30,000-foot’ perspective to inform response decisions but also because it would inform researchers and implementers who work ‘in the weeds’ of project-specific details on how to fit their work into the broader national and global strategies for action.

Levelling-up economics

Abstract This commentary argues that our awareness of the nature and scale of UK interregional inequalities has only lately begun to develop in a manner which is appropriate, given the scale of the challenge. The UK economics profession across government, business and academia has been slow to understand the gravity of the issue, in comparison to many other OECD countries. Indeed, this intellectual failure reflects a more fundamental failure on the part of the whole UK institutional and governance system, which has evolved, largely for historical and political reasons, into a form that is entirely inappropriate and ineffective for addressing these issues. The problem now is that reforming the system via devolution-related reforms is far more difficult than it otherwise might have been if these issues had been addressed decades earlier, as has been the case in other OECD countries.

Undergraduate Economics Program Enhancements to Increase Doctoral Program Participation by Under-Represented Students

The economics profession as with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines has recognized that it faces a “pipeline” problem of low numbers of under-represented minorities (URM) completing PhDs. The ancillary described in this article addresses the economics pipeline problem by using strategies modeled after University of Maryland Baltimore County’s (UMBC’s) STEM focused Meyerhoff Scholars program. These strategies include identifying URM students in early stages of their undergraduate careers with the ability and motivation to pursue graduate work, providing information about career opportunities for those completing PhDs, guidance on course selection and on undergraduate research opportunities. UMBC’s Predoctoral Fellows in Economics Program prepares students for successful admission into well-regarded PhD programs by enhancing their likelihood of successful applications to predoctoral programs in economics. URM undergraduates who maintain strong grades in mathematics, statistics, and economics and who engage in productive undergraduate research experiences and produce high-quality research output should find exciting predoctoral, doctoral and career opportunities.

Ranking women economists in the U.S. South: results from citation counts and metrics

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the paucity of rankings of women in the economics profession by presenting citations-based rankings of women economists at national colleges and universities in the U.S. South. Based on total citations and two citations indexes – the h-Index and the g-Index – Maureen Cropper of Maryland, Catherine Eckel of Texas A&M, Nora Lustig of Tulane, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan of Maryland, and Katharine Abraham of Maryland consistently occupy the top ranks among women economists in the U.S. South. When the research impact of these and other women economists in the U.S. South is compared to that of their predecessors across the entire country, as in Medoff and Sov (1990), one gets a picture of the substantial impact of their academic research.

Have agricultural and applied economists lost sight of the land‐grant mission? A textual analysis of Presidential Addresses and Invited Papers from 1919–2022

AbstractAgricultural and applied economists have maintained a public discourse at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) meetings and subsequently published papers discussing the mission of land‐grant institutions and the role of AAEA members in that mission. With a content analysis of 4001 Invited Papers and Presidential Speeches, we find agricultural and applied economists questioned their profession's purpose and role within the land‐grant system. The reflective questions still apply to land‐grant institutions and the agricultural and applied economics profession. We argue that AAEA members are crucial in addressing the food and agricultural challenges connected to society's deepest needs today and into the future.

Application of KL distance-based intelligent recommendation method to fund recommendation for users with investment behavior in Asia Region

Over the past decade, the spectacular growth of many economies in Asia has amazed the economics profession and Asian people's quality of life has been significantly improved. Therefore, people's savings are increasing. The booming financial market attracts more people to invest in funds for its relatively low risk and high returns. This research first analyzed the widely used recommendation algorithms. Then it adopted the K-medoids clustering algorithm based on KL divergence to make recommendations. The recommendations were also based on the user-item rating matrix. First, the improved Kullback-Leibler distance was used to calculate the distance and similarity between the funds. Next, the data set of n funds were split by the K-medoids clustering technique into k clusters to obtain funds that were similar to the target fund. Finally, the prediction accuracy of the KL-KM recommendation algorithm was compared with those of traditional recommendation algorithms. When the number of recommendations changed from 1 to 5, the average minimum KL distance varied from 0.16, 0.22, 0.29, 0.31, to 0.39. The average KL similarity is 0.85, 0.83, 0.79, 0.74, and 0.72, respectively, and the average absolute error is 0.83, 0.82, 0.82, 0.83, and 0.82, respectively. The root mean square error (RMSE) of the proposed algorithm is 0.93, 0.94, 0.93, 0.94 and 0.94, respectively. Therefore, the proposed recommendation model has a better recommendation performance than existing models to meet users' demands. This algorithm generates recommendations of similar funds based on customers' purchase history. Moreover, principal component analysis is used to simplify the large data set of indicator values into a smaller set while still maintaining significant patterns and trends, thereby improving the accuracy and reducing the complexity of the model.

Report of the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession

Report of the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession

Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession

Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession