Northwestern University - Department of Economics Graduate Connection Vol. 16 No. 3 March 2011 News ....................... 1 News five and above are not eligible for TGS Events ...................... 3 summer funding.) Teaching..................... 4 TGS has set us a budget constraint of 48 Formal Announcements ......... 8 Mortensen Conference summer fellowships. We have a total of 67 Funding Opportunities ......... 10 students in years 2 through 4. The first Notes ...................... 10 A conference honoring Professor Dale priority is those students guaranteed Mortensen will be held at the Allen Center summer funding in their offer letters on Friday April 15 and the morning of (typically those given a University Saturday April 16. The program can be Fellowship in their first year). Of course seen at a link from the front page of the some students obtain paid RAships and Department’s web site. So that we can others work away from Evanston. plan for the numbers attending, free Consequently, in the past few years we registration is required by Monday April 4. have (just) managed to fund all eligible A handout detailing how you can register is students seeking summer funding. in your mailbox. We cannot guarantee that we will not In addition to the speakers, other leading have to ration this summer. Students, researchers will be attendance, as will especially those admitted without a many alums of our PhD program. University Fellowship, can obtain certainty of funding by seeking out paid RAships Nemmers Prize from Economics or Kellogg faculty. Irrespective of your initial funding, you The winner of the 2010 Erwin Plein have to have met the Department’s usual Graduate Connection Nemmers Prize in Economics, Elhanan progress goals to obtain funding. That is to Department of Economics/NU Helpman of Harvard University will be on say that you need to have made sufficient campus from April 20 to May 16 (in room progress to have been eligible to be a TA 307). The biennial honor is bestowed on in the current academic year. an outstanding economist who has yet to The application form for summer win the Nobel Prize. Professor Helpman’s funding should be submitted between May work deals with international trade, 1 and May 15. You will receive an e-mail Published 3 times a year in economic growth, and the political on May 1 with more details and a link to September, December and March economy of trade policy. the form. by: His Nemmers Prize lecture is on April 28 at 3:30pm at the Allen Center. See the New Faculty Department of Economics “Events” section for more details. Northwestern University Professor Helpman will also be here in the 2001 Sheridan Road Seema Jayachrandran will join the Spring Quarter of 2012. During that visit Department as an Associate Professor in Evanston, IL 60208-2600 we will be holding the Nemmers Prize www.econ.northwestern.edu September. She works in development conference. economics, and joins us from Stanford University. Ian Savage, editor Summer Funding The hiring process for Assistant 847-491-8241 Professors is still continuing, so there may [email protected] The Graduate School (TGS) provides us be additional good news to come. with a quota of summer funding slots for second through fourth year students. (Funding for the summer at the end of the first year is detailed in a student’s admission offer letter. Students in years March 2011 Graduate Connection O 2 Visitors institution are hiring less than last year. enrollments. This means that we are Demand in Europe continues to be robust. normally able to fund all eligible students Pierre Dubois, Stephan Lauerman All but one of our students has already as TAs within the Department and the and Sebastian Buhai remain with us, the received at least one offer. But the market MMSS Program. latter moving back to room 3235 for the seems to moving a bit slower than usual The Department wants to make it very Spring Quarter. this year and therefore many of our clear that it is inappropriate for graduate Visiting for the entire Spring Quarter students have yet to make their decisions. students to conduct private arrangements to will be macroeconomist Thijs van Rens However, some students have already TA for faculty in other departments. If you from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain. decided: are approached in this way, direct the He will be in room 3225. Andrea Ajello - Federal Reserve Bank faculty member to contact our Associate Other macroeconomists will also be Board of Governors, Washington DC Chair. visiting for shorter periods. These visitors, Matthias Kehrig - University of Texas, and with Professor van Rens, will be Austin Computer Lab giving lectures to a special graduate Shiran Rachmilevitch - University of student class. See Economics 498-1 in the Haifa, Israel This summer, as part of our routine “Teaching” section for details. The Michael Roach - Middle Tennessee State replacement of computers in the computer visitors are: Michele Tertilt from Stanford University lab, we will be retiring the four oldest University for the weeks of April 18 and Kota Saito - California Institute of machines. As in the past we will schedule 25, Juan Rubio-Ramirez of Duke Technology the installation of new machines during the University and Jesus Fernandez- Twan Hwee Sng - National University of quiet period of late July and early August. Villaverde of the University of Singapore (post-doc at Princeton Full details including the possible auction Pennsylvania who will both be here for the University 2011-12) of the existing four-year-old machines to weeks of May 9 and May 16, and Martin Cristina Tealdi - IMT Institute for interested graduate students will be Schneider of Stanford University who will Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy circulated closer to the time. be here for the week of May 16. Andre Trindade - Bates White, As you will be aware the server that Theorist Jayant Vivek Ganguli from Washington DC controlled printing in the computer lab has Cambridge University will be from March and one of our students from a couple of failed. We do need to maintain some 21 to April 22. Econometrician Jack years ago, John Parman, who had taken a control over printing. Prior to installation Porter from the University of Wisconsin post-doctoral fellowship has accepted a of the most recent software, printing was will be here for the week of April 11. The tenure-track position at the College of uncontrolled and we were unable to afford Center for the Study of Industrial William and Mary. to replace the computers because all of the Organization welcomes Steven Berry of One of the Kellogg students on the budget was spent on printer toner. A Yale University for the week of May 16. economics market has accepted a position: technological solution is in the works and Historian Jans-Joachim Voth from Mauricio Varela - University of Arizona will probably be operational around Spring Universitat Pompeu Fabra will be here Students who intend to be on the job Break. Because the exact nature of the from April 26 to May 13. market next year, or are just curious about software is not entirely clear yet, you In addition, Nemmers Prize Winner what it entails, are encouraged to attend an should expect to see an e-mail with Elhanan Helpman will visit from April 20 orientation on Tuesday May 17 (see in the detailed instructions in the next week or so. to May 16, Department-wide seminar “Events” section below). speaker Christopher Sims will be here on Web Site Photos May 2 and 3, and Bies lecturer David TA Duties in Other Departments Cutler will be here on May 19. See The Department’s web site will be separate “News” or “Events” listings for The Department has a policy that any redesigned over the next few months. One more details. other Departments that desire to hire an of pages has pictures of the graduate Economics student as a Teaching Assistant students. Most of these pictures are Placement Report must discuss this with us first. scanned from our original hard copy This is partly to ensure that only publication. You can update your picture. students who are making appropriate To do so, note that: Professor Aviv Nevo, Director of progress in their studies are funded, and - photo can be color or black-and-white Graduate Placement, reports that the partly because the Department must ensure - it should be a passport-style head shot market for new PhDs has only partly that our own faculty and classes receive - No hats or sunglasses recovered. Demand at many top academic first priority. WCAS has been very - A neutral plain background (preferably departments and in the private sector is up, generous in providing us with TAships to light colored) is best but many states schools and government support our large undergraduate March 2011 Graduate Connection O 3 - Remember that this is a business web site will be allocated to non-job-market fifth Mortensen Conference not your Facebook page year students. - Ratio of width to height is 1:1.2 A conference honoring Professor Dale - Crop and reduce your picture to 125 Eisner and Bies Awards Mortensen will be held at the Allen Center pixels wide by 150 pixels high on Friday April 15 and the morning of - Name it Lastname.jpg (note that your last The Department has establish a more Saturday April 16. See the “News” section name should have the first letter only formal timetable for deciding on the for more information. capitalized, and jpg is in lower case) winners of the Eisner Fellowship (awarded - e-mail as an attachment to Ian Savage annually to a graduate student who has Schwartz Lecture <[email protected]> distinguished him- or herself in both teaching and research) and the Bies Prizes The annual lecture series organized by Students Working on NSF Grants (given to the best public policy papers the Kellogg School of Management to presented as part of the Economics 501 honor the late Nancy Schwartz will be at Under new federal legislation, the seminar).