Join us in our upcoming Applied Economics Seminar at the Graduate Center organized by Professor Agbeyegbe, Hunter College & Graduate Center.

A lecture by:
Patricia Gomez-Gonzalez, Fordham University
“Same Spain, Less Pain?” (joint work with Daniel M. Rees Federal Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract:

 We explore how the Spanish economy would have performed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis if it had retained an independent monetary policy rather than joining the euro. A novel aspect of our approach is that we set up and estimate a structural model that takes account of the break in the conduct of monetary policy that occurred when Spain joined the euro, including anticipation effects. On average, Spanish economic growth would have been around 1.5 percentage points higher and consumption growth 0.5 percentage points higher between 2008 and 2014 if Spain had retained an independent monetary policy. But because euro entry led to a large boom prior to the crisis, the level of economic activity would have been similar by late 2014, regardless of Spain’s monetary arrangements.

Paper available here.

 Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Location: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room: 5383

Travel Directions to The Graduate Center:
By Subway: B, D, F, N, R, or Q to 34th Street-Herald Square; walk east to 5th Avenue 6 to 33rd Street.
By Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M16, M34, Q32.

A big loss for our profession. Here are three articles about this sad news:

The New York Times

The Washington Post

Financial Times

and a longer blog post about his main contributions:

The Greatest Living Economist Has Passed Away: Notes on Kenneth Arrow Part I

Don’t miss the following event of the series “The First 100 Days.” Presented with the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality and the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC).

Description:
The stock market surged soon after since President Trump’s election, but much remains uncertain about his economic plan. Will his proposed combination of tax cuts, spending cuts, and infrastructure investment produce long-term growth or a new recession? Kathleen Hays, global economics and policy editor at Bloomberg, moderates a panel of experts from across the political spectrum to break down the unknowns and the realities of “Trumponomics.”

PANELISTS:

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, New York Times columnist, and distinguished professor at the Graduate Center.

Jason Furman, senior fellow at Peterson Institute of International Economics and former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Dan Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, fellow at the Century Foundation, and author of The Age of Oversupply.

James Pethokoukis, CNBC contributor, columnist and blogger at the American Enterprise Institute, and former Washington columnist for Reuters.

WHERE:

The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue

ROOM:

C200: Proshansky Auditorium

WHEN:

February 21, 2016: 6:30 PM

ADMISSION:

Free; Reservations Required (Make your reservation here.)

SPONSOR:

Public Programs

This event will be live-streamed.

Join us in our upcoming Applied Economics Seminar at the Graduate Center organized by Professor Agbeyegbe, Hunter College & Graduate Center.

A lecture by:
Professors Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier, Graduate Center, CUNY
“Austerity Blues: Fighting for the Soul of Public Higher Education”

The discussion will be based on their published book: https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/austerity-blues

Overview:
Public higher education in the postwar era was a key economic and social driver in American life, making college available to millions of working men and women. Since the 1980s, however, government austerity policies and politics have severely reduced public investment in higher education, exacerbating inequality among poor and working-class students of color, as well as part-time faculty. In Austerity Blues, Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier examine these devastating fiscal retrenchments nationally, focusing closely on New York and California, both of which were leaders in the historic expansion of public higher education in the postwar years and now are at the forefront of austerity measures.

Fabricant and Brier describe the extraordinary growth of public higher education after 1945, thanks largely to state investment, the alternative intellectual and political traditions that defined the 1960s, and the social and economic forces that produced austerity policies and inequality beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s. A provocative indictment of the negative impact neoliberal policies have visited on the public university, especially the growth of class, racial, and gender inequalities, Austerity Blues also analyzes the many changes currently sweeping public higher education, including the growing use of educational technology, online learning, and privatization, while exploring how these developments hurt students and teachers. In its final section, the book offers examples of oppositional and emancipatory struggles and practices that can help reimagine public higher education in the future.

The ways in which factors as diverse as online learning, privatization, and disinvestment cohere into a single powerful force driving deepening inequality is the central theme of the book. Incorporating the differing perspectives of students, faculty members, and administrators, the book reveals how public education has been redefined as a private benefit, often outsourced to for-profit vendors who “sell” education back to indebted undergraduates. Over the past twenty years, tuition and related student debt have climbed precipitously and degree completion rates have dropped. Not only has this new austerity threatened public universities’ ability to educate students, Fabricant and Brier argue, but it also threatens to undermine the very meaning and purpose of public higher education in offering poor and working-class students access to a quality education in a democracy. Synthesizing historical sources, social science research, and contemporary reportage, Austerity Blues will be of interest to readers concerned about rising inequality and the decline of public higher education.

Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Location: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room: 5383

Travel Directions to The Graduate Center:
By Subway: B, D, F, N, R, or Q to 34th Street-Herald Square; walk east to 5th Avenue 6 to 33rd Street.
By Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M16, M34, Q32.

Join us in our upcoming Applied Economics Seminar at the Graduate Center organized by Professor Agbeyegbe, Hunter College & Graduate Center.

A lecture by:
Xiye Yang, Department of Economics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
“Jump Contagion in Financial Markets”

The talk will be based on two of his co-authored papers:
Testing for mutually exciting jumps and financial flights in high frequency data (link to paper)
And Testing for Self-Excitation in Jumps (link to the paper).

Date: Monday, February 6, 2017

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Location: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room: 5383

Travel Directions to The Graduate Center:
By Subway: B, D, F, N, R, or Q to 34th Street-Herald Square; walk east to 5th Avenue 6 to 33rd Street.
By Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M16, M34, Q32.

Don’t miss the following event presented with the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality:

Description:
Which U.S. colleges best help children climb the income ladder? How can we increase access to such colleges for children from low-income families? Economist Raj Chetty takes on these questions in a bold new study, pointing to public higher education as a key agent of change: CUNY alone propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all eight Ivy League campuses combined. Chetty joins the GC’s Presidential Professor Philip Kasinitz (Sociology); Presidential Professor Leslie McCall (Sociology and Political Science), associate director of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality; and moderator David Leonhardt of The New York Times, with opening remarks by Chancellor James B. Milliken.

Read David Leonhardt: “America’s Great Working-Class Colleges” (NEW YORK TIMES 1/18/17)

Read David Leonhardt: “Budget Cuts That Are Un-American” (NEW YORK TIMES 1/19/17)

Read THE UPSHOT: “Some Colleges Have More Students from the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60” (NEW YORK TIMES 1/18/17)

WHERE:

ADMISSION: