Department of Economics
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Department News
April
Current Doctoral Candidate Joaquin Rubalcaba has just accepted an Assistant Professor position with the Department of Public Policy, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2010 UNM Department of Economics PhD graduate Bishwa Koirala has just been promoted to the associate professor with tenure at the Department of Economics and Decision Sciences, School of Business, UNC at Pembroke. He is also the Director of Economics and Business Research Center at the School of Business. Professor Bohara was his dissertation advisor.
Former UNM Department of Economics 2000 PhD graduate, Therese Grijalva has just been named a 2018 Presidential Distinguished Professor at Weber State University. Professor Berrens was her dissertation advisor. https://www.weber.edu/WSUToday/041918_DistinguishedProfessors.html
Assistant Professor Ben Jones had his sole-authored paper, "Willingness to Pay Estimates for Wildfire Smoke Health Impacts in the US using the Life Satisfaction Approach," accepted for publication in: Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy.
Congratulations to University of New Mexico's, Luisa F. Sanchez-Carrera, is the recipient of the 2018 Frieda Sanidas Leason and Bernard V. Leason European Union Scholarship Fund. Ms. Sanchez-Carrera is a senior undergraduate studying Economics and International Studies. She will be using this $2500 grant to further her studies in the EU this summer under the Schloss Dyck program. Congratulations, Luisa!
March
Assistant Professor Kira Villa has been awarded a UNM Research Allocation Committee (RAC) grant, for her project: "The intergenerational health impact of early life climate variability and its implications for child recovery from natural disasters: Evidence from Indonesia."
Assistant Professor Sarah Stith has been awarded a UNM Research Allocation Committee (RAC) grant, for her project: "PTSD & Cannabis: Benefits & Risks."
This past December, a group of interdisciplinary students from The University of New Mexico traveled to Nepal, where they learned to pronounce Siddharthanagar and focused on awareness initiatives as part of the Himalayan Study Abroad Program. UNM Students Help Citizen Science Initiative in Nepal
Janak Joshi (PhD Candidate) has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor with the Department of Economics at Central Michigan University.
Chris Erwin (PhD Candidate) has accepted a Post Doctoral Fellow position by Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Jose Bucheli (PhD Candidate) has accepted a Visiting Research Fellow position with the Center for Mexican-American Studies at University of California-San Diego.
Soumi Roy Chowdhury (PhD Candidate) has accepted a position as an Associate Fellow by the India National Council of Applied Economics Research (NCAER), New Dehli, India.
February
Assistant professor Ben Jones and his co-author Shana McDermott had their paper, “The Economics of Urban Afforestation: Insights from an Integrated Bioeconomic-Health Model” accepted for publication at the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Mohammad Ali (PhD Student) Kira Villa (Assistant Professor), and Janak Joshi (PhD student), who had their paper, "Health and Hunger: Nutrient Response to Income Depending on Caloric Availability in Nepal", accepted for publication in: Agricultural Economics.
January
Justin Whetton (Econ PhD student), Assistant Professor David van der Goes and their co-authors had the following paper, “Cost-effectiveness of Access to Critical Cerebral Emergency Support Services (ACCESS): a neuro-emergent telemedicine consultation program”, published in the Journal of Medical Economics.
Research Professor Rich Bernknopf, Professor Emeritus David Brookshire and their co-authors had their paper, "The Value of Remotely Sensed Information: The Case of GRACE-Enhanced Drought Severity Index", published in the journal: Weather, Climate and Society.
An interdisciplinary group of University of New Mexico (UNM) students traveled to Nepal on the Himalayan Study Abroad Program this December (December 19th, 2017- January 6th, 2018) offered by the Nepal Study Center (NSC) and Department of Economics. The study abroad program was co-led by Professor Alok Bohara and Michael Benjamin Goodwin (graduate student, economics department). For daily diary and the programmatic details, please visit: https://foxc01.wixsite.com/yogdan/projects
Assistant Professor Sarah Stith and her co-authors (Jacob Vigil and Anthony P. Reeve) had their paper, "Accuracy of Patient Opioid Use Reporting at the Time of Medical Cannabis License Renewal" accepted by Pain Research and Management.
Assistant Professor Andrew Goodkind and his co-authors (Jay Coggins, Jason Nguyen, and Beverly Wang), had their article, "Price effects, inefficient environmental policy, and windfall profits," accepted at Environmental and Resource Economics.
Assistant Professor Benjamin Jones had his sole-authored paper entitled “Spillover Health Effects of Energy Efficiency Investments: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Los Angeles LED Streetlight Program” accepted for publication at the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
December
Assistant Professor Benjamin Jones had his sole-authored paper, "Measuring Externalities of Energy Efficiency Investments using Subjective Well-Being Data: The Case of LED Streetlights," accepted for publication at Resource and Energy Economic.
Dr. Ben Jones, Dr. Robert Berrens and co-authors had their paper, "In Search of an Inclusive Approach: Measuring Non-market Values for the Effects of Complex Dam, Hydroelectric and River System Operations." accepted for publication in: Energy Economics
Dr. Ben Jones is co-PI on grant funding received from the National Center for Responsible Gaming; the grant focuses on mental health and gambling here in New Mexico. The total award is $300,000 and the UNM sub-award is $50,000.
Phd student Xuanhao He and Assistant Professor Xiaoxue Li had their co-authored paper “Public Insurance and Birth Outcomes: Evidence from Medicaid Implementation” receive the 2018 Best Paper Award (the 2018 McGraw Hill Education Distinguished Paper Award) from the Southwestern Society of Economists. They will be recognized at a March 7, 2018 banquet at the SSE meeting in Albuquerque.
Over the last year Professor of Practice in Water Policy and Governance, John Fleck has received numerous plaudits and reviews for his Island Press book, "Water if for Fighting Over..." The book just received another excellent review: Jacobs, Katharine L. "Managing Water Scarcity, or Scarcely Managing?" Review of Water is for Fighting Over and Other Myths about Water in the West, by John Fleck. Issues in Science and Technology 34, no. 1 (Fall 2017).
Former PhD Student Bern Dealy (now with FDA), Associate Professor Brady Horn and Professor Robert Berrens had a Policy Brief published in the London School of Economics' USAPP (American Policy and Politics) blog: "A nearby meth lab can mean a big price hit for homeowners - even after they've been cleaned up." See: http://bit.ly/2o8y2Yr
Dr. Alok Bohara with Jose Bucheli and Dr. Matias Fontenla "Mixed Effects of Remittances on Child Education" that just got accepted for publication in IZA Journal of Development and Migration
Graduate Seminars
All Seminars are located in the Economics Dept, Room 1002 from 3:00p - 4:30p. Speakers and dates are subject to change.
Dr. MJ Kim
April 13, 2018
The Value of Realational Contracts in Outsourcing: Evidence from the 2008 Shock to the US Airline Industry
We study relational contracts as a means to govern transactions across firm boundaries. We focus on the airline industry, where real-time adaptation of flight schedules under bad weather is not formally contractible, and yet is essential for performance and long-term profitability. While outsourcing reduces the operating costs of major airlines, it increases their risk of failed adaptation due to a loss of control in favor of the regional partners. We theoretically show that majors and regionals can implement efficient rescheduling through self-enforcing relational contracts if their partnership’s present discounted value (PDV) outweighs the total adaptation cost. Using the beginning of the 2008 crisis as an exogenous shock, we find that, consistent with the centrality of relational contracts in governing airline partnerships, outsourced routes in networks with higher total adaptation cost, and hence higher PDV, were more likely to remain outsourced to the same partner after the crisis.
