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Previous News and Notes

2007 News and Notes (2007 Newsletter)

Recent News

  • The Department congratulates Maggie Coughlin, our department's administrative assistant, for winning one of the Spring 2007 WMU "Make a Difference" awards. Maggie will be honored at a luncheon in April, where she will receive a plaque and a check, and is now eligible for one of four Annual Awards. More info can be found here. Congrats Maggie.
  • Research by Susan Pozo, along with Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (WMU PhD, 1998) was mentioned on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on November 1, 2006. The article was entitled "Migrants' Money is Imperfect Cure for Poor Nations," and was written by Bob Davis. A link to the article can be found here (http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=953913401&pt=Y)
  • The Department would like to welcome Patty Vagnoni as its new office coordinator. Patty's email is here .

Tenure/Promotion/Retirements

  • Becky Ryder, one of the department's administrative assistants, retired on July 31st after 23 years with the department. She previously spent 17 years with the history department. We congratulate her on her retirement and wish her the best.
  • Donald Meyer was promoted to Professor of Economics.
  • James Hueng and Michael Ryan were tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.

More Faculty News

Department Receives External Grants/Awards

  • Christine Moser is a U.S. Embassy Science Fellow for Madagascar, 2006. She is funded by the USDA and serves as an agricultural policy advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries in Madagascar with a mandate to
    study ways to improve agricultural production and market capacity in the rice and potato markets.
  • Susan Pozo has received $138,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health to work on "Remittances and Risk: Evidence from Mexican Migrants." Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes of San Diego State University (WMU PhD, 1998) serves as co-principle investigator of this two-year project that examines various aspects of workers’ remittances, including how the repatriated earnings of immigrant workers relate to the risks facing these workers. Susan can be contacted at susan.pozo@wmich.edu.
  • Jean Kimmel has received $64,616 from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research to write a book titled "The Role of Caregiving in Mothers' Time Use: Recent Evidence from the New American Time Use Survey." This is a 2-year project joint with Rachel Connelly (Bowdoin College). Jean can be contacted at jean.kimmel@wmich.edu.
  • Jean has also been named a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. Her appointment (effective May 2005) is for three years. For more information on the IZA, check http://www.iza.org/.

Ph. D. program places all 5 graduating students

All five of our graduating Ph.D. students were placed in job. Check here for all of the info.

Department's Visiting Scholar

Esther Duflo, Professor of Economics at MIT and the Director of MIT's Poverty Action Lab is the department's 2006-2007 Visiting Scholar. Dr Duflo will visit the department on September 20, 2006.

More information on the visit is forthcoming.

2006 Alumni Achievement Award Winner

Dr. John E. Anderson is the department's 2006 Alumni Achievement Award Winner. Dr. Anderson was recently appointed as Senior Economist of the Council of Economic Advisors for 2005-2006. Dr. Anderson advises on public finance matters and on tax policy issues, two of his areas of expertise. He has published widely on these subject matters in numerous highly regarded academic journals as well as other outlets. Professor Anderson is the Baird Family Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and he has also been the Chairman of the Economics Department there since 2002.

Dr. Anderson received his B.A. in Mathematics and Economics at Western Michigan University in 1973. He went on to get his M.A. (1976) and Ph.D. (1977) degrees in economics at the Claremont Graduate School. Dr. Anderson worked a number of years at Eastern Michigan University before taking a position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1991. Professor Andershon has achieved a distinguished career and has received numerous awards and honors both in the academic arena and in the public and government sectors.

For more information on previous Alumni Achievement Award Winners, click here.

2006 News and Notes

Welcome New Faculty

The department would like to welcome two new faculty to our department this year:

  • Christine Moser comes to us from Cornell University (PhD 2004), having spent the past year as a visiting assistant professor at Colgate University. Christine’s research is on rural poverty and development in Africa as well as natural resource management in developing countries. Christine has served as consultant for the World Wildlife Fund as well has having spent time in the Central African Republic and Benin as part of the US Peace Corp. She will be teaching Environmental Economics this fall. Christine can be contacted at christine.moser@wmich.edu.
  • Ed van Wesep (Michigan State, PhD 2001) will be a Lecturer in Economics as well as taking over the role as the department's undergraduate advisor and advisor to the Economics Student Association. He will be teaching Principles of Microeconomics and Money and Banking courses this fall. Ed shares an "empty nest" in Grand Rapids with his wife, Kathy. He has two grown children: Sarah, who just graduated from the University of Michigan, and Robert, who is entering his second year at U of M. Ed can be contacted at edward.vanwesep@wmich.edu.

More Faculty News

In addition to the new faculty, several other changes have occurred within the department in the past few months. They include:

  • Werner Sichel retired in December, 2004.
  • Bassam Harik moved to Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences.
  • Bill Kern took over the interim department chair role in January, 2005.
  • Mark Wheeler has taken over the role as director of graduate studies.
  • Susan Pozo is this year's director of the Werner Sichel Lecture-Seminar Series.

Department Receives External Grants/Awards

  • Susan Pozo has received $138,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health to work on "Remittances and Risk: Evidence from Mexican Migrants." Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes of San Diego State University (WMU PhD, 1998) serves as co-principle investigator of this two-year project that examines various aspects of workers’ remittances, including how the repatriated earnings of immigrant workers relate to the risks facing these workers. Susan can be contacted at susan.pozo@wmich.edu.
  • Jean Kimmel has received $64,616 from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research to write a book titled "The Role of Caregiving in Mothers' Time Use: Recent Evidence from the New American Time Use Survey." This is a 2-year project joint with Rachel Connelly (Bowdoin College). Jean can be contacted at jean.kimmel@wmich.edu.
  • Jean has also been named a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. Her appointment (effective May 2005) is for three years. For more information on the IZA, check http://www.iza.org/.
  • Sisay Asefa spent six weeks in May-June 2005 in Ethiopia under a Fulbright Senior Specialist Program,
    where he was hosted by Addis Ababa University and the Cultural Affairs Office of the US Embassy in Ethiopia.
    During his visit he gave seminars and lectures to graduate students at Addis Ababa University, participated in the International Conference of Ethiopian Economic Association, and delivered lectures in private university colleges in Ethiopia. Toward the end of his stay, he co-convened a successful third International Conference on Ethiopian Development Studies, July 18-19, 2005. Further information please visit website: www.wmich.edu/hcenter/cadpr or contact Dr. Asefa at sisay.asefa@wmich.edu.
  • Huizhong Zhou took a sabbatical leave in the fall of 2004, and worked in China as a Fulbright scholar. During his sabbatical, he taught at Fudan University in Shanghai and conducted research on regulation and restructuring in the Chinese telecommunications industry. He was also invited by other universities in China to give talks on competition
    strategies. Huizhong can be contacted at huizhong.zhou@wmich.edu.

In the News – TV/radio/print interviews and citations

  • Michael Ryan was interviewed by the Kalamazoo Gazette for the front-page story “Allegan tries to please Perrigo” about the city of Allegan, MI trying to keep its largest employer after its merger with Israel-based prescription generic-drug manufacturer Agis (Sunday, November 21, 2004). Mike can be contacted at michael.ryan@wmich.edu.
  • Emily Hoffman was interviewed for a Kalamazoo Gazette story on “Equal pay with men remains elusive for most women” (Sunday July 24, 2005, page 26). Emily can be contacted at emily.hoffman@wmich.edu.
  • Sisay Asefa was featured in the WMU News Radio News Service on the topic of "Chances for Peace in
    the Sudan", a 45 minute interview wasconducted by Mark Sherwin of WMU News, which appears in the WMU
    Radio News "Radio Transcript" at: http://www.wmich.edu/wmu/news/radio/050804.html. Dr. Asefa explained the prospects for peace in the Sudan, following peace agreement signed by the Sudanese Islamic Government and Dr. John Garang ,the leader of Southern Sudan. Unfortunately, Dr. Garang died of a helicoptor accident a few days after
    signing the Agreement made possible by the efforts of the US Government-state department. The late Dr. Garang was a class mate and a friend of Dr. Asefa in graduate school at Iowa State in the early 1980s. Dr. Asefa explained the prospects of sustaining peace agreement, especially after the death of Garang who has battled the Islamic Sudanese
    government for 22 years and lost 2 million Sudanese lives in the process.

Other Recent News

  • Sisay Asefa was recently invited by the Michigan State University Department of Agricultural Economics to become an External Member of its Graduate Advisory Panel.
  • Don Meyer, along with co-author Jack Meyer (Michigan State University) has been asked to write a 50 to 100 page paper tentatively entitled "Risk Aversion" to appear in a new journal called "Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics." This will be a new imprint by NOW Publishing. The article was solicited by W. Kip Viscusi, Editor in Chief of this publication, after reading and accepting their paper "Relative Risk Aversion: What do we Know?" for the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. This new paper will broaden and expand several of the issues contained in the JRU paper. The new journal will publish as separate issues lengthy handbook-type surveys or critical review articles on microeconomic topics. Don can be contacted at donald.meyer@wmich.edu.

WMU Alumni Selected as Department's Visiting Scholar

Vinod Thomas (M.A., WMU 1971; PhD, Chicago 1974) is the department's 2005-2006 Visiting Scholar, and will visit the department on March 15, 2006.

Dr. Thomas has been with the World Bank since 1976 where he has served in several capacities. As of November 2001, he has held the position of Country Director, Brazil. He is responsible for one of the World Bank’s largest portfolios of lending, policy and analytical work.Prior to his current appointment, he was Vice President of the World Bank Institute (WBI), the training arm of the World Bank. Dr. Thomas was responsible for the Bank’s principal vehicle for delivering timely knowledge in member countries through seminars, conferences, and a variety of print, broadcast, and multi-media products. Dr. Thomas’ expertise includes knowledge sharing and training, trade policy, macroeconomic adjustment, macro-sectoral links, environmental policy, agricultural policy, urban economics, and poverty measures.

Prior to heading the WBI, Dr. Thomas held positions as chief economist for the World Bank in the East Asia and Pacific region, chief economist for Asia, staff director for the 1991 World Development Report, chief of trade policy, and principal economist for Colombia. From 1979 to 1981, Dr. Thomas was a Visiting Professor and Advisor of Urban Studies at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Thomas lectured at Vassar College. Dr. Thomas is also the author of numerous books, articles and reports.

More information on the visit is forthcoming.

Department of Economics, College of Arts & Sciences
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Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008
Phone: (269)-387-5535 Fax: (269)-387-5637

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