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Department of Economics

Department of Economics faculty members are very active in the Centers and Programs of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. In addition to the entries in those sections, and to publications listed in "Papers, Books and Chapters: Published or Forthcoming," various other projects of economics department faculty are listed below. Academic programs are described in the Office of Academic Assistance section. James Alm is Chair of the Department of Economics.

Highlights

• The Department admitted 17 new doctoral students in fall 2005, and 22 new Master of Arts in Economics and Policy Track students. There are now nearly 90 students in the Ph.D. program and about 35 in the Masters of Economics program.
• The department hired three new faculty members - Noah Langdale Jr. Eminent Scholar Chair James Cox, Yuriy Kitsul, and Klara Sabirianova Peter - and is looking to hire another five more faculty members to create one of the largest economics departments in the country.
• In addition to its undergraduate and graduate programs, the Department offers three unique programs: Peace Corps Master's International Program, South Africa Study Abroad Program, and the Summer Policy Internship Program.
• The Department is also now offering a novel joint major with the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the undergraduate level, an interdisciplinary program that combines a foreign languages major with an international economics focus (International Economics and Foreign Languages).
• The Department is also considering a 5-year program that would lead to a BA and an MA in Economics.
• Economics faculty and staff taught over 170 courses in 2005.

Programs

Graduate Teaching Assistant Training Program. This program was created in 2000 to help GTAs in Economics perform well in the classroom. The training in 2005 again was extensive. GTAs videotaped some portions of their lectures, which then were analyzed by Harry Dangel, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Dangel worked with the GTAs to identify areas for improvement. The responses from GTAs who participated in the program were very positive. The GTA Undergraduate Teaching Committee for 2005-2006 consists of Shelby Frost, Jon Mansfield, and Elizabeth Kozlovski.

Faculty Recruitment. The Department welcomed three new professors in 2005.

• Professor James C. Cox earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He joined the Department of Economics as the Noah Langdale Jr. Eminent Scholar Chair. He specializes in experimental economics, and he will head the new Experimental Economics Center at the Andrew Young School.
• Assistant Professor Klara Sabirianova Peter earned her Ph.D.'s from University of Kentucky and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her specialties include Labor Economics, Applied Microeconomics and Applied Econometrics, Development Economics, Economics of Transition and Comparative Economic Systems, Public Policy, and Urban and Regional Economics.
• Assistant Professor Yuriy Kitsul earned his Ph.D. from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His specialties include Econometrics and Financial Economics.

Summer Intern Program. The Department continued its Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer intern program, under the supervision of Neven Valev and with funding from the National Science Foundation. Students work closely with a faculty mentor on a research project of their own choosing. Interns receive formal and systematic training in a weekly seminar that provides basic research skills, and the program culminates in a presentation and a paper related to the research experience. One student's evaluation of the experience: “I really liked how the program is structured, with weekly meetings with other interns to discuss our progress and regular meetings with our mentors to ensure the project continued on schedule. I was particularly pleased that the vast majority of our time was devoted to our individual research project, so that we are actually learning and accomplishing economic research in a way that is not possible in the classroom.”

Ten students from around the country attended the seven-week program, which ran from May 31 to July 15, 2005. Interns were from Howard University, University of Buffalo, Benedict College, Georgia Southern University, Berry College, UC Berkeley, Illinois State University, College of St. Scholastica and Centre College. Research projects included children's health care, income inequality, volunteer organizations in emergency management and homeland security, fiscal decentralization of transportation and poverty reduction, and modeling the flypaper effect. The program is very competitive with over 100 applicants. Many graduates of the program have enrolled in top Ph.D. programs in Economics such as Princeton, Minnesota, and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Indonesian Masters Program. The Indonesian Masters Program currently consists of five students who have moved from the M.A. program to the Ph.D. program. Three students from the first year program and two from the second year program remained in the U.S. to finish their studies at AYSPS and to complete their doctorate degrees. The students have begun their dissertation writing process. The program is co-directed by James Alm and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez.

South Africa Study Abroad. The May 2005 economics study abroad program, South Africa: Its Evolving Socio-Political Economy, was a success. Five students from Georgia State and Morehouse College traveled to South Africa for a 2-week study abroad program, under the direction of Glenwood Ross of Morehouse College. While in South Africa, the students were presented with lectures on various aspects of the South African economy and of sub-Saharan Africa in general. Lectures were held at the University of Pretoria. In addition to learning about the economy, the students were exposed to South African culture, history, and the political environment through museum visits, city and homeland tours, and trips to informal settlements. A major highlight of the trip was the visit to Robben Island, where the students learned more about the struggles of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid political prisoners.

The study abroad program was split between the Pretoria/Johannesburg area and Cape Town. While in the Pretoria/Johannesburg area, the student travelers stayed at Olympic athlete training facilities on the campus of the University of Pretoria; in Cape Town, lodging was provided at the Victoria Junction Hotel near the Cape Town waterfront. Students also had overnights at a safari game park and in a tribal village. The 2005 Economic Studies Abroad in South Africa Program was a great learning experience for all, and the 2006 version promises to be just as fact- and fun-filled as its predecessor. The 2006 Program will take place during the Georgia State Maymester.

Projects

Disseminating Experiments in Economics with the Econport Digital Library. (National Science Foundation). James C. Cox, PI, and J. Todd Swarthout, Co-PI. The grant is for implementing a national dissemination of EconPort through workshops conducted at the home university and in association with professional conferences. This is the second funded component of a planned long-term commitment to developing and maintaining this state-of-the-art teaching and research facility. (July 1, 2005-June 30, 2008, $900,000)

Collaborative Proposal: [AOC]: IT-Enhanced Market Design and Experiments. (National Science Foundation). James C. Cox. This grant will be funded by the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems. It is a collaborative grant that is linked to grants to Daniel Friedman, Director of the Learning and Experimental Economics Projects Lab at UC Santa Cruz, and James C. Spohrer, Director of Almaden Research Services at IBM. The central topics are concerned with theory and experiments in the intersection of microeconomics and information technology. This is the first funded component of a planned long-term collaboration with Almaden Research Services. (December 2005-2006, $250,000)

An Active Object-Based Digital Library for Microeconomics Education. (National Science Foundation). James C. Cox, PI, and J. Todd Swarthout, Co-PI. This grant was funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education. The grant was to support the online creation of EconPort, which is the economics component of the National Science Digital Library. EconPort tracks users in two general ways. Professors must register to make use of the experiment software, as this allows us to keep their information private and available only to them via a login procedure. As of November 2005, 400 people have registered to use the EconPort software. Since we began tracking site usage in February 2005, EconPort has averaged 254 sessions per day (a session consists of all the pages viewed by a user on a single visit to a web site). (October 1, 2002-April 1, 2005, $700,000)

Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Paul G. Farnham. (2005-06, $66,146)

Private Provision of Public Goods: Applying Matching Estimators to Evaluate 'Direct Payments' for Tropical Forest Conservation. (National Science Foundation). Paul J. Ferraro, Erin Sills and Subhrendu Pattanayak. ($30,934)

Evaluating the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Sea Turtle Conservation. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Paul J. Ferraro. ($54,040)

Agricultural Water Policy for Georgia. (United States Department of Agriculture). Paul J. Ferraro. (Finished June 2005, $837,429)

The Stability of Mixed-income Neighborhoods in America:1990-2000. (Georgia State University). Douglas Krupka. Research Initiation Grant. ($10,000)

Choosing Among Risky Alternatives: An Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Insurance Markets on Biases in Decision-Making. (National Science Foundation). Susan K. Laury with Melayne Morgan McInnes, University of South Carolina. (August 2002-July 2006, $177,895 – GSU Portion $89,157)

Game Theory and Social Interactions: A Virtual Collaboratory for Teaching and Research. (National Science Foundation). Susan K. Laury with Lisa Anderson, Catherine Eckel, Jean Ensminger, Jacob Goeree, Charles Holt, David Reiley, Thomas Palfrey, Alvin Roth, and Rick Wilson. (June 2001-May 2006, $2,498,479 – GSU portion: $200,348)

Developing and Testing the Role of Salinity and Other Market-Based Instruments to Improve Agricultural and Environmental Outcomes in the Face of Climatic Variability. Susan K. Laury. McMaster Visiting Fellowship, Adelaide, Australia. ($12,900)

Conducting Laboratory Experiments on the Effects of Appearance on Sorting into Groups. (Georgia State University). Ragan Petrie. Research Initiation Grant. (2005-2006, $9,500)

Advancement of Women Faculty Scholarship Mentoring Grant Pilot Project. (Georgia State University). Ragan Petrie with Susan K. Laury. Grant to fund laboratory experiments on the effects of appearance on trust. (2005, $6,000)

Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperate: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Urban Peru. (Inter-American Development Bank). Ragan Petrie, Co-Principal Investigator, with Marco Castillo, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Maximo Torero, International Food Policy Research Institute. (2006, $40,000)

Using the SRS Human Resource Data to Study Science and Engineering Workforce. (National Science Foundation, with cost sharing from the National Bureau of Economic Research). Paula E. Stephan. ($44,276)

Growing Postdoctoral Population at U.S. Research Universities. (TIAA-CREF Institute). Paula E. Stephan. ($10,000)

SBIR Case Studies. (National Academies). Paula E. Stephan. ($7,500)

Child Policy Speaker Series. (Arthur Blank Family Foundation). Erdal Tekin. ($10,000)

Child Policy Research Funding. (UPS Foundation). Erdal Tekin. ($4,500)

Identifying Agent-Specific Influences in the Real Estate Brokerage Process. (National Center for Real Estate Research). Geoffrey K. Turnbull. ($17,500)

Summer Internship Program. (National Science Foundation). Neven Valev.

Curriculum Review at University of Guyana. Mary Beth Walker with Mark Rider. ($189,000)

Proposals Under Review

Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Urban Peru. (Inter-American Development Bank’s program on Discrimination and Economic Outcomes). Ragan Petrie. Submitted November 2005.

The Financial System in Bulgaria. (International Research and Exchange Review Board (IREX)). Neven Valev. Submitted 2005.

Socio-economic Status and Longer-Term Effects of Child Abuse. (National Institute of Health). Erdal Tekin with Janet Currie. Revised proposal under review. ($350,000)

Working Papers

James Alm

• and Roy Bahl and Bayar Tumennasan*. “Fiscal Decentralization, Corruption, and Tax Effort.”
• and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Sally Wallace. “Do Tax Amnesties Work? The Revenue Effects of Tax Amnesties in the Russian Federation.”
• “The Determinants of State Government Tax Structure.”
• “How Should Individuals Be Taxed?”
• (with Patricia Annez). “Analyzing the Effects of Indian Stamp Duties.”
• and Roy Bahl and Sally Wallace. “Assessing the Nepal Fiscal Decentralization Program.”
• (with Brian Erard). “Developing a Methodology for Estimating the Informal Supplier Tax Gap.”
• and Edward Sennoga*. “Free Agents, Baseball, and Income Taxes.”

James Cox

• and Vjollca Sadiraj (with Bodo Vogt and Utteeyo Dasgupta). "On the Empirical Plausibility of Theories of Risk Aversion.”
• and Vjollca Sadiraj (with Daniel Friedman). “Revealed Altruism.”

Paul J. Ferraro

• “Testing Game Theory with Nash Agents.”
• (with Ju Tsun Hsieh). “Using Virtual Agents to Differentiate Among Altruism, Strategic Behavior and Error in the Ultimatum Game.”
• “Know Thyself: Incompetence and Overconfidence.”
• and Toshihiro Uchida*. "Investor Reactions to Information Disclosure: Can Providing Public Information About Firms’ Pollution Improve Environmental Performance?"

Chiara Franzoni***

• (with F. Lissoni). “Academic Entrepreneurship: Definitional Issues, Policy Implications, and a Research Agenda.”
• (with G. Vitali). “Innovazione, Performance Economiche e Occupazione. Un’Analisi Panel.”

Julie L. Hotchkiss

• (with Jill Marie Gunderson). "Job Separation Behavior of Welfare Recipients: Results from a Unique Case Study." 
• (with Mary Graham). "Which Industries are the Best Employers for Women? An Application of a New Equal Employment Opportunity Index." 
• (with Brian S. Armour and M. Melinda Pitts). "Lifetime Smoking and Wages for Older Female Workers."
• (with John C. Robertson). "Labor Force Participation Across the Business Cycle."
• (with M. Melinda Pitts and John C. Robertson). "Firm Survival in Georgia."
• (with M. Melinda Pitts). "Intermittent Labor Force Participation Among Men."
• and Robert E. Moore. "Impact of Trade Policy on Employment in Georgia: Insight from State Administrative Data."
• (with Barry T. Hirsch and David Macpherson). "Transitions Between Disability Status."

Yuriy Kitsul

• “A Semi-nonparametric Model of the Pricing Kernel and Bond Yields.”
• “Empirical Implementation of the Eigenfunction Approach to Modeling Stochastic Volatility.”

Douglas Krupka

• “Are Big Cities More Segregated? Neighborhood Scale and the Measurement of Segregation.”
• and William J. Smith. “Distance, Difference and the Determinants of Inter-area Migration.”
• “Of Battle Axes and Saw Teeth: a Marginal Approach to Empirical Testing of the New Economic Geography Model.”

Susan K. Laury

• (with Charles Holt). “Further Reflections on Prospect Theory.”
• and Ragan Petrie (with Stephanie Hill). “Crops, Water Usage, and Auction Experience in the 2002 Irrigation Reduction Auction.”
• “Designing an Auction Mechanism to Reduce Irrigation During Severe Drought.”
• (with Ronald J. Baker and Arlington W. Williams). “Comparing Group and Individual Behavior in Lottery-Choice Experiments."

Jorge Martinez-Vazquez

• and Riatu Qibbthiyyah*, Mark Rider, and Sally Wallace. “The Effect of Russia’s Flat Rate Income Tax on Net-Wages.”
• Javier Arze** and Mark Rider. “Multiple Modes of Tax Evasion: Numerical Simulations.”
• and Sally Wallace (with Dagney Faulk). “Taxing Potential Income.”
• (with Saloua Sehili). “Fiscal Incidence at the Regional Level.”
• and Mark Rider (with H. Bastin). “The Intertemporal Elasticity of Substitution, Progressive Taxation, and Aggregation Bias.”
• and Jameson Boex. The Design of Equalization Grants: Theory and Applications.
• with Richard Bird*** and Benno Torgler***. “Societal Institutions and Tax Effort in Developing Countries.”
• and Jim Alm with Benno Torgler***. “The Evolution of Tax Morale in the Russian Federation.”
• chapter in Alternative Methods of Taxing Individual Income, James Alm (ed.).
• (with Wayne Thirsk). "Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Ukraine."
• (with Francois Vaillancourt). "The Role of Government in Regional Economic Development."

Klara Sabirianova Peter

• “Skill-Biased Transition: The Role of Markets, Institutions and Technological Change,” IZA Discussion Paper, No. 893.
• (with Mark Berger and Glenn Blomquist). “Compensating Differentials in Emerging Labor and Housing Markets: Estimates of Quality of Life in Russian Cities,” IZA Discussion Paper, No. 900.
• (with Yuriy Gorodnichenko). “Public-Private Wage Gap, Quantile Regressions, and the Measure of Corruption.”
• (with Jan Svejnar). “Firm Survival and Growth under Soviet Planning and During the Transition to a Market Economy.”

Ragan Petrie

• (with Marco Castillo). “Discrimination in the Warplace: Evidence from a Civil War in Peru."
• (with Marco Castillo).“Discrimination in the Lab: Experiments Exploring the Impact of Performance and Appearance on Sorting."
• (with Sarah Jacobson). “A Test of Reference-Dependent Preferences in a 'Pen Game' Field Experiment in Rwanda.”
• and Susan Laury. “Individual Motives for Giving in Public Goods Experiments.”
• (with James Andreoni and Marco Castillo). "Revealing Preferences for Fairness in Ultimatum Bargaining."
• “Trusting Appearances and Reciprocating Looks: Experimental Evidence on Gender and Race Preferences.”
• "Does it Matter Who You Bargain With? Experimental Evidence from South Africa."

Inas Rashad

• (with Gregory Colman). “Obesity and Depression.”
• (with Dhaval Dave and Jasmina Spasojevic). “The Effect of Retirement on Health.”
• (with Sara Markowitz). “Health Insurance and Obesity: Results Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.”
• and Lei Zhang*. “Time Preference and Obesity: Are We Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck?”
• (with Dhaval Dave). “Overweight Status and Suicidal Behaviors among Adolescents: Correlation or Causation?”

Mark Rider

• and Eunice Heredia*. “India’s Intergovernmental Transfer System and the Fiscal Condition of the States.”
• (with Luc Noiset). “A Critique of JTC and OTA’s Method of Conducting Distributional Analysis.”
• and Mary Beth Walker. “Panel Data Evidence on State Variations in Public Spending on Education."

Felix Rioja

• (with Stefan Krause). “Financial Development and Monetary Policy Efficiency.”
• and Paul Kagundu* and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez. “The Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Road Infrastructure.”
• and Neven Valev. “Financial Structure and the Sources of Economic Growth: Comparing Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and OECD.”
• and Neven Valev and Amanda Wilsker*. “Hispanic Immigration in Georgia: Economic Policy Issues.”

David L. Sjoquist

• (with W. Loren Williams). “A Theory of Intergovernmental Mandates,” under revision.
• “The Effect of Government Competition on Sprawl.”
• and Sally Wallace. “The Effect of a HOPE VI Project on Resident Employment Status.”
• and Yongsheng Xu. “Mandates and Fiscal Federalism."
• and James Alm. “Fiscal Centralization."
• with William Smith*, Mary Beth Walker and Sally Wallace. “An Analysis of the Time to Adoption of Local Sales Taxes: A Duration Model Approach,” under review.
• and James Alm. “The Flypaper Effect: An Experimental Approach."
• and Mary Beth Walker. “The Supply of Private Schools.”
• (with Gary Cornia and Larry Walters). “An Analysis of Voluntary Collection of Sales Taxes.”
• (with Gary Cornia). “Explaining Changes in Fiscal Effort.”
• and James Alm. “The Price Effects of a Temporary Reduction in Georgia’s Fuel Tax.”

Paula Stephan

• (with Jerry Thursby and Matthew Higgins). “Initial Public Offerings and the Role of Human Capital.”
• and Albert Sumell** (with James D. Adams). “Capturing Knowledge: The Location Decision of New Ph.D.'s Working in Industry.”

Laura Taylor

• and Ikuho Kochi* (with Kevin Boyle). “Estimating the Benefits of Reducing Non-Point Source Pollution with a Second-Stage Hedonic Model.”
• and Carol Scotton**. “Mortality Risk by Occupation Within an Industry, Inter-industry Wage Differentials, and the Value of a Statistical Life.”
• and Carol Scotton**. “Revealed Preference Evidence on the Value of Reducing Mortality Risks: Does the Source of Risk Matter?”
• (with Kevin Boyle and Mark Morrison). “Experimental Tests of Provision Rules in Choice Surveys.”
• (with John Braden and DooHwan Won). “The Economic Value of Cleaning Contaminated and Noxious Sites: A Meta Analysis.”

Erdal Tekin

• (with Janet Currie.) “Does Abuse Cause Crime?"
• and Mary Beth Walker and Sally Wallace. “Teen Smoking and Birth Outcomes.”

Neven Valev

• “Tolerance for High Unemployment during Transition.”
• (with John Carlson). “Beliefs about Exchange Rate Stability in a Transition Economy: Survey Evidence from the Currency Board in Bulgaria,” Working Paper Series, Bulgarian National Bank.

Visitors and Presentations

The Economics Club arranged and hosted the following presentations:

Experimental Economics Seminars: