For those on the Eco 741 waiting list (Urgent)

From Prof. Filer:

I have been listing Econ 741 as CLOSED based on the number of registration permissions I entered. However, as of today not everyone who obtained permission has registered and there are students on the waiting list.

If you obtained permission for econ 741 and have not registered, you MUST either register or confirm your intention to do so by the end of the day TOMORROW (Wednesday). Otherwise your permission will be revoked. (If you have a permission and do not intend to use it, please let me know.)

If you have been denied permission due to the section being closed but are still interested in the class, please reconfirm your interest by the end of the day Wednesday.

Thank You

Randy Filer

Prof. Thurston's E-Res Website

It does require a password. If you need it, e-mail me.

http://queens.docutek.com/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=295

ICPSR Link Added

For those of you looking for social/political survey data, a permanent link has been added for the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in the righthand column of this page. New sources will be added as they become available.

Economics Department Seminars

The following presentations will be held from 11:30 to 1 in the Economics Department conference room (HW 1538 - on the 15th Floor). Please note that the dates for the talks range from January 30th to February 16th.

Shamena Anwar, Yale University - Monday, January 30, 2006 - Testing forStatistical Discrimination: Evidence from the Game Show Street smarts http://pantheon.yale.edu/~sya5/jobmarketpaper.pdf

Radha Iyengar, Princeton University, Wednesday, February 1, 2006 - Not Getting Their Due Process: An Evaluation of the Performance of Federal Indigent Defense Counsel http://www.princeton.edu/~riyengar/indigent_defense_v10.pdf

Gunjan Sharma, University of Maryland - Friday, February 3, 2006 -Competing or Collaborating Siblings? Industrial and Trade Policies in India http://glue.umd.edu/~gsharma/1Jan_GSharma_JMPaper.pdf

Henry Schneider, Yale University - Monday, February 6, 2006 - A FieldExperiment to Measure Agency Problems in Auto Repair
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~hss27/Henry%20Schneider%20-%20Auto%20Repair.pdf

Pascaline Dupas, Paris - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - Relative Risksand the Market for Sex: Teenagers, Sugar Daddies, and HIV in Kenya
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~pd482/Dupas_RelativeRisks.pdf

Claudia Perez-Canals, Columbia University - Thursday, February 9, 2006 -What Explains the Widening Wage Gap? Outsourcing vs. Technology
http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ecc2069/CanalsJobMarket.pdf

Joyce Chen, Harvard University - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 -Identifying Non-Cooperative Behavior Among Spouses: Child Outcomes inMigrant-Sending Households
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chen20/papers/non-coop.pdf

Matthew Baker, USNA - Thursday, February 16, 2006 - Marriage,Specialization, and the Customary Gender Division of Labor
http://ideas.repec.org/p/usn/usnawp/1.html

A good example of IV usage

Apropos Prof. Deb's lecture tonight, I was reminded of an article I read over the break that demonstrated good usage of an instrumental variable (religious market density) to isolate the effect of religious participation on income. The link to Jonathan Gruber's paper is http://www.nber.org/papers/w11377. You can download the entire paper by submitting your Hunter e-mail address.

Note, I first learned of this paper through an 'Economics Focus' article in The Economist.

Also, in light of tonight's talk, I'd also like to encourage everyone who finds a good data source to send me an e-mail. We'll begin to compile these sources on the blog.

Required Texts for the Spring Semester

The following are the assigned texts for this Spring's classes. My thanks to all of the professors for their rapid replies.

Econ 703 - Macroeconomics Mondays 5:30 - 7:20 Professor Thurston
No required text. Instead, journal articles will be posted on a to-be-announced website

Econ 722 - Econometrics Thursdays 5:30 - 7:20 Professor Deb
Same books as last semester

Econ 710 - Monetary Theory Tuesdays 7:30 - 920 Professor Thapar
Walsh, Carl. Monetary Theory and Policy. ISBN: 0262232316

Econ 715 - Public Finance Mondays 7:30 - 9:20 Professor Balsam
Anderson, John. Public Finance. ISBN: 0618214496
Oxford University Press. Readings in Public Finance. ISBN: 0195669622
Kozol, Jonathan. Shame of the Nation. ISBN: 1400052440

Econ 730 - Development Economics Wednesdays 7:30 - 9:20 Professor Filer
Ray, Debraj. Development Economics. ISBN: 0691017069

Econ 741 - International Finance Thursdays 7:30 - 9:20 Professor Kearney
Krugman and Obstfeld. International Finance. ISBN: 0321293835

The ISBN links above go directly to the half.com website. This is one of the more popular websites, but I know some people have had issues with them in the past. I only include the links for convenience, not endorsement.

Two announcements

From Prof. Conning:

Hi all,

Just a reminder that this Thursday January 12th is the date of the Eco
701 exam. It will be held at 7:20pm in the usual room. The practice exam
offers a good model of what it might look like.

For those of you who are unable to make it this Thursday because you are traveling or other reasons, the college provides for a MAKEUP EXAM in early February (they set Feb 4-5, but I may make it somewhere around February 7th (you have to take one or the other, you cannot take both!)

I will honor either exam option and, if anything, I actually prefer to grade exams in February (since as it is I will have to grade the January exams on a plane on my way to Tanzania on Friday).

If you prefer the the February option, please email me. Per the instructions from the Dean, you would then be temporarily assigned an INComplete when I submit the other grades, until you makeup with a February exam.

I will try to hold office hours on Wednesday 2-3:30pm and will post confirmation to the website and Blackboard. Sorry I don't have time to write answers to the practice final. Hunter's 'urban' server, which hosts the class website was down, but hopefully it will be up again soon.

Regards,

Jonathan

Opportunity to earn some extra money:

An MA student is needed to proctor an exam this Thursday from 6:20 to 8:20. It is paid, but I don't know how much. Those interested can e-mail Prof. Honig at this address.

Hope everyone had a good holiday,
Fred

Help for Department

From Professor Filer:

Dear MA students:

The department needs to set up a conference call this afternoon to discuss potential new faculty members. Since Professors Deb and Sevak are in India and several others are also away, we would like to do this using Skype. Unfortunately, all the faculty who are experienced Skypers are among those who away. IS there anyone who could set up this call in the dept conference room on Wednesday? If you would be willing to help out, please contact Professor Chernick and me by e-mail ASAP.

Thanks and Happy New Year

Randy Filer