News: Academic Year 2014-15
Distinguished Teaching Assistants Honored
The Department's Distinguished Teaching Assistant Awards for 2013-14 were presented in October 2014. The winners are: Titan Alon, Daniel Fershtman, Ruben Gaetani, Aanchal Jain, Alexander James, Sebastian Kohls, Andreas Kropf, Christopher Lau, Natalya Naumenko, Esteban Petruzzello, Christopher Romeo, Shruti Sinha and Yi Sun. These awards are given to the top third of our Teaching Assistants, based on student and faculty evaluations.
Robert Eisner Memorial Fellowship
In October 2014, a fellowship in honor of our late colleague Robert Eisner was presented. For 2014-15 the Fellowship was awarded to Sebastian Kohls. This fellowship is awarded annually to a graduate student who has distinguished him- or herself in both teaching and research.
Susan Bies Research Prizes
The annual Susan Schmidt Bies Prizes for Doctoral Student Research on Economics and Public Policy were awarded in October 2014. The awards are given to the best public policy papers presented as part of the Economics 501 Graduate Student seminar. The winners for 2013-14 were Stephanie Chapman for a paper on whether differences in minimum work age laws between states in the early 1900s affected peoples’ income later in life, and Germán Bet for a paper on the role institutions play in whether countries can grow their economies after external exogenous shocks. The prizes were generously donated by alumna Susan Schmidt Bies (PhD, 1972). Her professional career included serving on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Nemmers Prize Winner Awarded Nobel Prize
Jean Tirole, the 2014 holder of the Nemmers Prize, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics on October 13, 2014. Tirole, a professor at the Toulouse School of Economics, was recognized for his work on regulating large firms with market power. He visited Northwestern in Spring Quarter 2015, presenting a public lecture, and participated in a conference on another aspect of his work concerning liquidity, bubbles and crises. The Nemmers Prize is a biennial honor bestowed on an outstanding economist who has yet to win the Nobel Prize. However, as with Daniel McFadden in 2000, Professor Tirole won the Nobel Prize subsequent to his awarding of the Nemmers Prize but before his visit to Northwestern. Seven of the eleven holders of the Nemmers Prize were subsequently honored as Nobel Laureates. Read more about the Nemmers Prize.
Welcome to our New Faculty
The Department is pleased to announce that Matthew Notowidigdo joined the Department on July 1, 2014. His research is in labor economics, public finance and the economics of health care. Previously he was a faculty member at the University of Chicago. In August 2015, we welcomed Yingni Guo (pictured), a microeconomic theorist, who just completed her Ph.D. at Yale University.
Joel Mokyr gives Keynote Address
Joel Mokyr was the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Illinois Economics Association in Chicago in October 2014. His talk was titled ""The Great Needham Puzzle: An Economist's Perspective"
Robert Gordon elected Distinguish Fellow of the American Economic Association
Robert Gordon has been elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (AEA). The Distinguished Fellow awards recognize lifetime research contributions. Since 1965, past presidents of the AEA are recognized as Distinguished Fellows, and up to four additional individuals may be elected for the award in any one calendar year. He is recognized as a leading American macroeconomist, and is known particularly for his work on business cycles, productivity growth, long-run economic growth, and the economics of the airline industry. The award recognizes a long career of outstanding contributions to scholarship, teaching, public service, and the economics profession. The award citation can be read at the AEA website.
Carl Shapiro Presents 2015 Bies Lecture
Carl Shapiro, the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy in the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, presented the 2015 Susan Bies Lecture on Economics and Public Policy on May 13, 2015. His lecture was on "Antitrust Limits on Mergers: Protecting Consumers and Enabling Synergies." Watch a video of his lecture.