Economics Department Newsletter

A Message from the Chair ...

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Greetings from the Department of Economics to our alumni, supporters and friends. A good number of our undergraduate and graduate students received their degrees last year and, as always, most of them did very well in the job market.

Last April, the Department recognized its outstanding students at its annual banquet. Craig Gevelinger received the 12th Economics Alumni Scholarship, fully funded by the financial contributions of our alumni. Proceeds of the scholarship's seed money established by Dr. Glen McConkey, the Chair of the Department in the 1970's, were awarded to Kyle Baumgartner and Jeremy Davis with the 25th McConkey Scholarship. The Dr. Ahmad Murad Scholarship, established in 1991 in memory of the former chair of the department, recognized Erik Adamiec and Erik Pizer to receive the 13th Murad Scholarship. The Baumgartner Scholarship, a joint scholarship among several disciplines, was awarded to Edward Kain.

Economics faculty are engaged in a variety of professional activities and have earned recognition for themselves as well as the institution. Dr. Tim Mason, who was on sabbatical leave, returned to Eastern to assume the responsibilities of the Undergraduate Advisement. Dr. Corley, the former advisor for over 30 years, retired in May of 2003. Speaking of sabbatical, Dr. Alan Grant is on leave for the academic year doing research on the Island of Palau in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, while Dr. Minh Dao’s leave keeps him active in the department.

We are delighted to have Dr. Hui Li join our department. She received he Ph. D in Economics from the University of New Mexico and specializes in Environmental and Natural Resources and Econometrics. Dr. Hal Nordin, our emeritus faculty, Dr. Terry Parks, emeritus faculty from Indiana State University, and Mr. Donald Jordan have joined us as adjunct faculty this year. Dr. Eric Hake continues serving as the graduate advisor. Dr. Ghent is the advisor to the Economics Club, which is active in all areas of educational and social affairs. The Financial Trip Program took another 10 students to observe the operation of major financial institutions in Chicago. Our next trip, under the supervision of Dr. Mason, is scheduled for March/April of 2005, and as always, we look forward to seeing you at our reunion.

Please visit the Department's web site at http://www.eiu.edu/~economics/ We rely on your feedback to help us strengthen our quality program offerings. As always, your intellectual contributions feed the necessary program changes to enable our graduates to meet the challenges of tomorrow. We are always on the lookout for promising students who are interested in economics. We welcome your written suggestions and look forward to seeing you at homecomings and whenever you are in Charleston.

Dr. Ebrahim Karbassioon
cfexk@eiu.edu

Message from the Undergraduate Advisor

Say hey Students, Prospective Students, and Alumni!

Following the retirement of Professor Corley in 2003, I was honored to become the department's Undergraduate Advisor. I truly enjoy the opportunity this has provided me to meet and work with all of our current majors and many of our Economics minors. It is such a pleasure to witness that peculiar facial expression students show when they learn that they will indeed be able to graduate this (or next) semester B an expression of satisfaction spiced with anxious anticipation as they face their future. As an economist, I'm not supposed to say this, but, A It's priceless! @

So, now I am (1) undergraduate advisor, (b) placement coordinator, and (iii) internship coordinator. I keep collecting titles like Pooh-Bah in The Mikado . Though I take on this new role, Dr. Karbassioon has insisted that I continue to organize the annual Chicago Financial Institutions Field Trip and the Econ Alumni Reception each spring. As advisor, working with all of our majors as they strive toward graduation and the exalted status of cherished alum, I anticipate the positive externality of getting more alumni to the annual reception and, of course, to Homecoming and Celebration.

Alumni: stay in touch, write if you get work.

Current Econ majors and minors, prospective Econ majors and minors: drop on by and let me know how the go's going.

Tim Mason

Go Giants!

A Message from the Graduate Advisor

Hello Alumni, current students, and potential future students:

The economics graduate program at Eastern Illinois University is doing very well. We have some great faculty and students that are very involved in their research and studies, and the graduating students are finding a good range of diverse positions. Our graduate program is focused on training students to think critically while learning the empirical techniques and economic theory that are so important in making informed decisions in business and government.

Over the past four years, average enrollment has been 20 degree seeking students. With a department of 15 full time faculty, this provides a great opportunity for faculty-student interaction. The average length of time to completion is approximately 3 semesters (1.5 years). I am also pleased to say about half of our graduate students receive some form of scholarship support, either through departmental teaching or research assistantships, international student scholarships, or assistantships in other departments on campus. As graduate advisor I am doing everything I can to locate these resources and help graduate students apply for positions that finance their graduate education.

If you are a graduate alum of Eastern, you should be proud that this program is thriving and your fellow alums are doing well in the world. If you are a current undergraduate at Eastern Illinois, or a prospective student from another city, state, or country, you should also be aware that this faculty is doing what it can to provide a beneficial learning experience. We can’t force students to learn, but we can show them how if they want.

Recent graduate students at Eastern Illinois University have followed many diverse paths. Some have chosen to pursue their doctorates at Georgetown University, University of California Santa Cruz, and University of Illinois at Carbondale. Some are employed at Fortune 500 companies such as Caterpillar, Procter & Gamble, and Walgreen. Still others are working in finance in Chicago, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Other graduates are working at places whose names you might be less familiar with, but that doesn’t mean they are not doing very well: places such as China Telecom, Reed-Elsevier, Empire Today, and Vincennes’s University.

While I am happy to see these graduates prosper, I do sometimes wish they didn’t scatter so far--Australia, Texas, Washington State and the District of Columbia, Nevis/St. Kitts in the Carribean, China, Nepal, and of course, our regional super-city, Chicago. Some of you have settled a little closer, Vincennes, Terre Haute, Peoria, somewhere in Indiana. Please stop by if you are ever passing through Chuck town.

If you are an alum, please touch base and let us know how things are going for you. If you graduated in the last five years and can’t recognize your career path in the various comments above, that means I need to hear from you! Faculty love to hear from their students! If you are thinking about graduate school, I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of higher education. If you are interested in our program, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about the process of application.

Dr. Eric Hake
Graduate Advisor
cferh2@eiu.edu

EIU, a Top School in Midwest

U.S. News & World Report magazine has rated Eastern Illinois University as one of the top universities in the Midwest. The magazine's annual guide to "America's Best Colleges" ranks Eastern 31st among 146 universities in the Midwest that offer programs through master's level. No other Illinois public universities were rated in the top 50.

In addition, the magazine also rated Eastern fifth among all public universities in the Midwest with master's programs.

Around the Department

Dr. Alan Grant

It's hard to imagine that it's been 5 years since I arrived at Eastern. Over that time span I've seen the department undergo some major changes, including the addition of many new faculty members. We have also seen the department taking advantage of relatively flush budgets and some help from the College of Sciences to bring in speakers for both the students and faculty to enjoy. Our speakers have ranged from former EIU students now working in the private sector to academic economists at the forefront of the discipline; several speakers have drawn statewide press coverage. We hope to continue these efforts, which afford our students both the opportunity to network and the chance to gain different perspectives than they might find in Coleman Hall alone.

For my former eager students, I'm still living amongst the Amish in Tuscola, IL (and you thought Charleston was slow!) and traveling on weekends to Chicago, where my wife works. Emily is both a lawyer and an accountant, so you can imagine the exciting dinner-table conversations in our household! My 1981 Datsun 210 was sold some time ago to a fellow department member in need; that need has since passed and I now understand that the "chick magnet" (as it was so affectionately nicknamed) has been transformed into a weekend race car. Pretty tall order for a car that could barely nudge 65 with a tailwind!

I'm really enjoying my time at Eastern, and look forward to many more years here. I've been lucky to have had so many exceptional students; I am equally lucky to have found such a large, diverse, and interesting faculty at such a small institution. You can rest assured that the people who taught you economics are first-rate teachers and scholars! I also wish you well in your endeavors, and encourage you to drop me a line if you can find the time. We always like to brag on the successes of our graduates!

Dr. Alan P. Grant
cfapg@eiu.edu

Alan Grant, Teacher-Scholar 2002

The Department of Economics has selected Dr. Alan P. Grant as the Department's nominee for the COS Teacher-Scholar Award to be presented at the 2002 ScienceFest. In his letter of nomination on behalf of the department, Chair Karbassioon praised Dr. Alan Grant as a colleague who "has demonstrated to possess the qualities of both an effective educator and an excellent scholar." A former student also nominated Dr. Grant for the Distinguished Honors Faculty Award.

Dr. Mukti Upadhyay

What's There in Macroeconomics Today?

I have had the fun to teach intermediate macroeconomics, among other courses, at Eastern for two and a half years now. The two broad areas that the teaching profession holds dear in standard macro are long-run economic growth (the smaller part) and short-run output and price stabilization over a business cycle. In each of these areas macroeconomics has evolved a great deal over the last decade.

Growth economics focuses on how economies evolve and eventually reach a long-run equilibrium. The equilibrium can be defined as a constant per capita income or a constant growth of per capita income. The short-run question of how to stabilize output around its trend takes so much time in the semester that a deeper examination of the process of sustained growth in income becomes infeasible. Enhancing economic growth is a paramount goal of poor societies, in particular, as they struggle to catch up with rich societies by launching institutional reforms, so as to create a permanent system of incentives for workers, savers and investors. Though modern macro does emphasize growth, much of it is included in development economics as, for instance, in the graduate development course I taught last year, and of course in macro courses at the graduate level.

But long-run macro should not only be about growth of income per capita. The profession is gradually waking up to the economy-wide issues such as income distribution, poverty, and environmental quality. These areas have invited significant research of late, as seen from publications in top journals. Yet, a classroom treatment of related topics has not developed in any consistent fashion, partly because these are difficult topics that require a discussion of the values and institutions around which national policies are designed. These topics, discussed from a different angle, remain a subject of applied micro.

The really big area in macro continues to be short-run fluctuations in output, and policies that help moderate them. We still discuss aggregate demand and supply, and inflation and unemployment, holding various assumptions about people's inflationary expectations. But we no longer assume that the central bank policy for output and price stabilization just falls from the sky. Many individuals and firms specialize in watching Fed's actions and revise accordingly their expectations of the future course of the economy, however challenging the business of economic forecasting may be. The Fed in turn takes people's reactions to any policy it might consider into its own policymaking exercise. It is clear even now that the Fed is engaged with the public in a game of policy and expectations (remember consumer confidence?) that has led to 11 interest rate cuts thus far since the beginning of 2001.

That's fun stuff. Go watch A Beautiful Mind as a preliminary background if you haven't caught up with the Fed game, while we sort through significant changes occurring in macroeconomic research to present a balanced macro picture in the classroom.

Dr. Mukti Upadhyay
cfmpu@eiu.edu

Dr. Minh Q. Dao

Hi, Economics Alumni. 2001 was a busy year for me. I attended the Faculty Summer Institute on Learning Technologies at the University of Illinois in May. I taught Economic Development in the summer and fall at the University of Illinois as an Adjunct Professor. I spoke at an economics session of the Public Investors' Financial Symposium on the current condition of the U.S. economy as well as the impact of the September 11, 2001 incident on its future at the Holiday Inn in Urbana, Illinois in October.

In terms of university-wide service, I was on the Dean of the College Sciences Search Committee. I also took a course on web site design and development in the fall.

Dr. Minh Q. Dao
cfmqd@eiu.edu

Who Was Your Favorite Econ Professor at Eastern?

Really, who was your favorite Econ professor when you attended Eastern? Would you like to tell us who your favorite Econ professor was? Before you jam up our telephone lines or flood us with your e-mails, let me tell you whom our current Econ students chose as their favorite Econ professor for the College of Sciences (COS) Student Advisory Board's prestigious "COS Outstanding Faculty Award."

Before even finishing her second year at the Department of Economics here, Dr. Linda Ghent has been nominated with overwhelming support by the current students enrolled in Econ courses for the " COS Outstanding Faculty Award". I don't even know who was chosen as the second nominee!

In the fall of 2001, Dr. Ghent came to Eastern, from East Carolina University, where she monopolized all of the teaching awards. She soon became a favorite of the students as well as the faculty. Here is what a triple-major student had to say about Linda. "She possesses many qualities that we feel exemplify an outstanding professor. To begin with, she has had a big impact on her students, as well as students that aren't in her classes."

When it comes to her performance in the classroom, one student had this to say, "Dr. Ghent is the epitome of an excellent teacher. She explains the material in a way that is interesting and extremely helpful. If someone says they do not understand, she will go over it using different examples until everyone understands."

A Message from the President of Econ Club

Welcome to the Economics Club. So far, this year has been great. The Fall Picnic was a blast. It's always fun to see the faculty playing volleyball in the sand. We found our new favorite shelter at Fox Ridge: Possum Holler. Our bi-weekly bowling outings are always exciting. Besides, it's a great way to avoid doing all the homework we're given! Our now annual Christmas Toy Drive was another great success. Catholic Charities was able to help over 300 kids this year. The rest of this year is looking good, so I hope to see all of you come out and support the Econ Club!

Your President,
Erik Pizer

Officers of the Econ Club

President, Erik Pizer
Vice President, Jeremy Brown
Secretary, Bogdan Stanciu
Treasurer, Kyle Baumgartner
Social Chair, Stephanie Southerland
Education Chair, Josh Schild
Primary Advisor, Dr. Linda Ghent

The Econ Club Advisory Committee

Dr. Linda Ghent, Chief Advisor

• Educational Affairs:
  Drs. Minh Dao, Eric Hake, Bill Thompson, and Mukti Upadhyay
• Social Affairs:
  Drs. Jim Bruehler and Ali Moshtagh

Econ Students on the COS Dean's List

Several Economics students were among the brightest students in the College of Sciences (COS) and made the Dean's list in 2004. Laura Keck, Erik Pizer, Michael Schulte, Stephnie Southerland, and Sean Moultan made the COS Dean's List. Each student received a letter of congratulations and a certificate.

To be named to the COS Dean's List, a student must be in the top ten percent of his/her college while carrying a full course load.

Publication: The Focus of the New Department of Economics

Whether attributable to new faculty, university encouragement with travel money, or simply faculty interest, the Department of Economics is publishing regularly. Focus on research is evident in the undergraduate and graduate research awards received this year from the College of Sciences. Jon Johnson won the Graduate Investigator Award for his research under Professor Bates and Joseph Siegel won one of the Scholars in Undergraduate Research at Eastern Awards for the paper he wrote under the supervision of Professor Upadhyay. Joseph Siegel was the Second Place Winner of the Social Science Writing Award. In addition, Amanda Grindey received an Honorable Mention certificate from the Social Science Writing Award Committee for the paper she wrote under Professor Moshtagh.

A sample of papers published or pending by faculty in the Department of Economics during the academic year 2001-2002 include:

Larry Bates and Ebi Karbassioon

• "Energy Prices and World Trade: A Study of the Income Elasticity of Imports," Journal of Business Economics Research, April 2001.

Del Champlin

• "Wages in Public Interest: Insights from Thorstein Veblen and Jim Clark" Journal of Economic Issues, pending.
• "Labour: A Fictitious Commodity Needs Instituted Power" in Economic Transition in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the History of Economics edited by Charles Michael Andus Clark and Janina Rosicka.
• "Subsistence in the Computer Era", Journal of Economic Issues, June 2001.
• "Media in the Public Interest", Journal of Economic Issues, June 2002.

Minh Dao

• "Empirical Regularities on the Growth of Government" Journal for Studies in Economics and Econometrics, vol. 25 (2), 2001.
• "James M. Buchanan" in The Frontiers of Economics: Nobel Laureates 1969-99 ed by Abu Wahid; Greenwood Press, Wesport, Connecticut.
• Book Review of Control of Public Money by A. Premchand, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India (2000) in Sustainable Development in Asia, America and Europe with Global Applications, by Jian-Ming Zhou, Edward Elgar Publishing, Norhampton, Mass (2001).

Linda Ghent

• "The Impact of a New Phased Retirement Option of Faculty Retirement Decisions", Research on Aging, Vol. 23, No. 6, Nov 2001.
• "Medication Costs and Reimbursements." The Macmillan Encyclopedia on Aging.

Alan Grant

• "Supply Shocks and Rationality of Inflation Forecasts", Quarterly Journal of Economics, Fall 2001
• "Time-Varying Estimates of the Natural Rate of Unemployment: A Revisitation of Okun's Law", Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Feb 2002.

Eric Hake

• "Corporatization of American Meatpacking", Journal of Economic Issues, June 2002.
• "The Stock Watering Debate: More Light, Less Heat", Journal of Economic Issues, June 2001.
• "Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation and the Current Transformations in Central Europe" in Economic Transition in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the History of Economics edited by Charles Michael Andus Clark and Janina Rosicka.

Mukti Upadhyay

• "Total Factor Productivity and the Convergence Hypothesis", Journal of Macroeconomics, pending.
• "Human Capital, Technology, and Specialization: A Comparison of Developed and Developing Countries", Journal of Economics, pending.

Bill Thompson

• "An Examination of the North American Classification System Relative to the Traditional Standard Industrial Classification System in Terms of Defining a Market for Antitrust Cases."

EIU ECONOMICS ALUMNI RECEPTION

Say hey Alumni!

I hope you all are gearing up for another great St. Patrick's Day celebration in Chicago. I trust three weeks will be sufficient time for you to recover and join us at the Eighteenth Annual EIU Department of Economics Graduates' Reunion. The reunion will again BEGIN at Bennigans, 225 North Michigan Ave., on Friday, April 8th, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., or thereabout. Drs. Karbassioon, Ali Moshtagh, soon to be professor emeritus Larry Bates, and hopefully others will join me and about ten seniors and graduate students.

We'll head out from Bennigans for dinner and an evening's entertainment; I hope you'll come along with us. Last year we had a riotous time at Buca di Beppo (on Grand), and then moved on to other venues. We had a good turn out last year and hope to repeat it this year.

We hope you will be able to attend and have the opportunity to renew old acquaintances as well as meet other economics graduates who live and work in the Chicago area. Please do us a favor and call your Econ friends and bring them along (we may have lost touch with them).
Also, be watching your mailboxes for this year's version of EconomiX Newsletter. This 10-12 page newsletter from the Department of Economics, written and edited by the Econ Faculty, is chock full of news of interest for you about EIU and the department.

We hope to see you Friday, April 8, 2005.

Sincerely,
Tim Mason (Trip Coordinator and Bus Driver)

Please note the time and location for the beginning of the reunion:
Friday, 8 April 2005, 5:30-7:00 (or so)
Bennigans
225 North Michigan Ave. (Michigan at South Water, parking nearby)
(312) 938-9080

While it's not necessary to reply to this invitation to attend the reunion, if you have a moment, please send us the information requested below to me so I'll have an idea of how many to expect AND so I can catch up with where you are and what you're doing. Feel free to add comments and tell me what you're up to. Or call the Department at (217) 581-2719. If you don't object, I'll share whatever news you have in next year's Econ Newsletter.

_ I will attend this year, and I'll have ___ others with me:

Personal Information
Name:
Home Address:
City/State/Zip:
Phone:
E-mail:
Degree/year:

Professional Information
Position Title:
Name of Company:
Company Address:
Company City/State/Zip:
Company Phone:

_ I won’t be able attend this year

Graduate Students Attend MVEA Conference

Six current economics graduate students will be taking the Night Train to Memphis to attend the Missouri Valley Economic Association Conference from February 28th through March 2nd. Professors Linda Ghent, Alan Grant, Ebi Karbassioon, Eric Hake and Tim Mason will accompany Jon Johnson, Bijay Raut, Janice Yap, Cynthia Schnell, Zhi-Feng Peng and Emily Smith. While at the conference they plan on attending the special session on education featuring Drs. William F. "Wild Bill" Thompson and Paul Fahy. Undergraduate Econ major Christina Boyd had her paper, An Examination Into the Saving and Loan Crisis, accepted for presentation at the conference but unfortunately will not be able to attend.

In addition to the conference sessions, the students will spend some quality time with their professors on the 14-hour van ride to Memphis and back (the Night Train was a budget buster). While in Memphis, students and faculty will explore the historic Beale Street area and enjoy the best barbecue that the "Home of the Blues" and "Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll" has to offer. Side trips to Graceland and Mud Island are remote possibilities.

This will be the fourth consecutive year the Department of Economics has sponsored this trip for graduate students to the Missouri Valley Economic Association meetings. In past years, the conference has been held in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Memphis. Along with the annual Chicago Financial Institutions Field Trip (described in a separate article in this newsletter), the MVEA trip is another chance for our students to work closely with the Economics faculty, get a better feel for what economists do, and broaden their horizons beyond the classroom. The trip is partially funded through the generosity of Economics Alumni who make contributions to the department during our annual Telefund Drive.

Professor Profile - Dr. Larry Bates

Professor Larry Bates has been at Eastern Illinois University since 1970. In that time, he has taught a wide variety of courses, but he says that his favorite course to teach is the Economics of Natural Resources.

Born in Palo Alto, CA, Dr. Bates attended Brigham Young University and the University of Texas at Austin. He will be celebrating his fortieth wedding anniversary this year. He and his wife have two sons, three daughters, and 12 grandchildren. (He also has a big black dog whose name is "Miga".)

Active in the Mormon faith (he was a Bishop in the Mormon Church for five years), Dr. Bates spent two-and-a-half years in Brazil on a mission for his church in the late 1950s. There, he learned to speak Portuguese fluently. His interest in Brazil did not end there; his dissertation research focused on the Brazilian petroleum industry.

Dr. Bates has a wide variety of interests and hobbies. He enjoys bird watching and collecting rocks. A master electrician, he takes pleasure in working on projects around his own home (which he built) as well as others. He has been very active in the reconstruction of Five-Mile House. Dr. Bates has also remained physically active, exercising on an almost daily basis for the past 30 years. His current exercise favorite is swimming in the pool at Lantz Arena, where you can find him everyday around noon.

If you want to catch up with Dr. Bates (he would love to hear from you all), you should e-mail him at cflwb@eiu.edu.

Last updated: Monday 20th of March 2006 11:34:30 AM