Letter from the Chair
Alumni and Friends of the Department of Economics,
Northwestern has just completed the fall quarter, and we in the Department look forward to an exciting winter and spring. As many of you know, this is the time of year when we actively recruit both new faculty and the next cohort of Ph.D. students.
We have searches at the senior level in applied microeconomics, in development and in econometrics. We are conducting an open field search at the junior level, as we have in most years. The hires that result from these searches will help keep the department at the cutting edge of research in economics.
At the same time, we continue to train many of the leaders in the next generation of economists. With the tireless support of our director of graduate placement, Alessandro Pavan, we have more than 20 Ph.D. students who are actively engaged in the job market right now, participating in virtual interviews and in person fly outs to some of the world's top universities, government agencies, and firms. But even as we prepare to say goodbye to these students, our directors of graduate admissions, Yingni Guo and Igal Hendel, are sorting through hundreds of applications from prospective new Ph.D. students. The applicants are drawn from top universities around the world. By April 15th, all the decisions will have been made and we will prepare to welcome the incoming class of 2024.
Several of our faculty members and former students have received honors and recognition. Ben Golub and Marciano Siniscalchi were elected as Fellows of the Econometric Society. The department voted this fall to promote Annie Liang to associate professor, and to grant her tenure.
Michelle Alexopoulos (Ph.D. 1999) began her term as President of the Canadian Economics Association. Irena Petryk (B.A. 2023) received a Truman Scholarship. Irena had previously been named a Rhodes Scholar. She began her studies in economic development at Oxford this fall.
The 2022 Nemmers Prize in Economics was awarded to Ariel Pakes of Harvard University. He was recognized for his “fundamental contributions to the development of the field of empirical industrial organization as it is applied to the study of market power, prices, mergers and productivity.” The department hosted a conference in Ariel’s honor in October.
When you next visit campus, please feel free to drop by the Economics Department and see for yourself the vibrancy and excitement that our community continues to generate. Until then, please accept the best wishes of the Department of Economics.