ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT BULLETIN Autumn 2000

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

A funny thing happened on my way to another ordinary academic year in 2000-2001. Only at the end of the summer did it emerge that I would be stepping back in for another two-year stint as department chair. This is not the place for a complete review of these late-breaking events, but some background information might be helpful.

Normally chairmanship appointments are made well in advance, early in the last year of the present chair's term. In this case, the dean's office allowed the matter to linger unresolved for the entire year and into the summer. The department's overwhelming preference was for reappointment of John Pencavel. But John insisted that he would only do so if a number of departmental concerns were addressed, most notably the size of the faculty. In the end both sides had to compromise, and I am delighted to report that John will be returning to the chairmanship after a well-deserved two-year break. It is less of a pleasure to report that I will be the one to hold the office during that period. But in the circumstances, it seemed that only a former chair could reasonably be asked to step in on such short notice. And so, in the interests of continuity and to avoid an extended crisis, I have agreed. The many offers of support and assistance I have received are much appreciated,, and I do plan to make use of them over the next two years.

Let me emphasize that in my view, some very positive things for the department have emerged from this unusual round of negotiation. With the strong recommendation of the distinguished external review committee, the dean's office has now agreed that the department is below its desirable size. We can look forward to gradual expansion over the next 3-5 years. In combination with anticipated replacement needs, this means that we can expect vigorous recruiting activity at both junior and senior levels. In the nearer term, we have the dean's approval for the plan to cap enrollment in our graduate core courses, long a sore point among first-year students. The caps seem to have been successful this term. We also have funding for an increase in the workshop budgets for visiting speakers, another recommendation of the review committee. For the undergraduate program, we have support for several initiatives to increase the number of economics majors writing honors theses.

All of these optimistic developments must, however, be tempered by the observation that the dean's office continues to believe that H&S suffers from severe budgetary constraints, so that the actual implementation of these plans remains subject to doubt and delay. The outlook for graduate student support is a particular area of concern, because of the imposition of tight new algorithms for allocating fellowship and Teaching Assistant funds, on top of the increase in the costs of Research Assistants which resulted from the change in the tuition remission system. I expect to be engaged in continuing efforts for improvements on all of these fronts this year.

In this uncertain setting, a real source of strength for the department is the quality of our administrative staff. We have had considerable turnover in recent months, but in every case, Trudy Haley has been successful in recruiting well-qualified, conscientious replacements. I look forward to working this year with the department's newly hired staff: Janet Weitz as Assistant to the Chair and Office Manager (replacing Nicole Reed); Suzanne Gruber as Undergraduate Student Services Officer (replacing Tiffany Jung), and Drusilla Scott as IEC assistant (replacing Carole King) - as well as with our stalwart incumbent staff. Stop in to introduce yourself to these helpful and friendly people. With their assistance and a little bit of luck, we can look for another successful year for our department.

Gavin Wright

WELCOME

The department is also pleased to welcome new and returning visiting faculty for autumn quarter. Linda Bell (Econ 101, Economic Policy Analysis) is Associate Professor of Economics at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Rodney Chun (Econ 118, Development Economics) is teaching for us for a second year. He is Assistant Professor at The Chinese University in Hong Kong. John Earle (Econ 120, Socialist Economies in Transition) is Associate Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has taught this course for the department on many occasions and receives high ratings from the students. Gregory Rosston (Econ 153, Economics of the Internet) is Associate Director of SIEPR. He has also taught courses in the Department of Public Policy. Kent Smetters (Econ 141, Public Finance and Fiscal Policy) is the Kaiser Visiting Professor this year. He is Assistant Professor at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Michael Topper (Econ 101, Economic Policy Analysis) returns to the Department to teach for us again this year. Mike is an Associate at Cornerstone Research in Menlo Park.

Visiting Scholars: New visiting scholars this year are: Kurt Annen, University of Washington, who does research on small firms. He is sponsored by Avner Grief; Seema Arora, Vanderbilt University, specializes in Economics of E-Commerce, Applied Econometrics and Environmental Economics. She is sponsored by Larry Goulder; Noburo Hamaguchi, Waseda University, Tokyo. He is sponsored by Gavin Wright; Veronika Orlova, Harvard University, is sponsored by Anne Krueger; Naoki Tani, Ryukoku University, Japan, specializes in economic theory. He is sponsored by Avner Grief; Ronald Wendner, University of Graz, Austria, does research on OLG models, environmental economics, and CGE modeling. His sponsor is John Pencavel; Fabian Wenner, St. Gallen University, Switzerland. His sponsor is Takeshi Amemiya. David Wildasin, Vanderbilt University, specializes in International Trade. His sponsor is Ron McKinnon; Naoki Yoshihara, Hitotsubashi University, Japan, is being sponsored by Peter Hammond.

New Staff: We have several new staff members who have joined the department in recent weeks. Suzanne Gruber has joined the department as the Undergraduate Assistant. She had been the Graduate Admissions Assistant in the Registrar's Office since 1989. Janet Weitz has joined the department as Office Manager. Her most recent job was as assistant to the Co-Director of CISAC (Center for International Security and Cooperation). CISAC is a part of the Institute of International Studies. She has also worked in the Sociology Department here at Stanford. Drusilla Scott is the new IEC assistant, coming from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Departing Staff: Carole King will leave at the end of October to move to Richland, Washington, where her husband has taken a position at Pacific Northwest National Labs. Jean Koentop has accepted a full-time position as Joe Stiglitz's administrative assistant and will move to IIS. We wish them both all the best, but we will miss them.

It is a pleasure to welcome to the department our first-year graduate students, new faculty members, and visiting scholars.

FACULTY NEWS:

Ronald McKinnon had an op-ed piece in the Financial Times, Thursday, September 28, titled "Two Sides of the Same Coin."

Mark McClellan has been selected to receive the Gordon and Dailey Pattee Faculty Fellowship for 2000-2001. The endowed fellowship was established by the Pattees to recognize outstanding faculty in the humanities and social sciences.

Faculty on Leave:

Three faculty members have been awarded National Fellowships at the Hoover Institute for the year: Patrick Bajari, Anjini Kochar, and Mark McClellan. Several others are on leave. Masahiko Aoki will be drafting a book manuscript and acting as an advisor to the Research Institute Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan. Charles Jones was recently awarded a John M. Olin Faculty Fellowship which will allow him to continue his research on economic growth. He is currently at the Federal Reserve Bank. Paul Milgrom has accepted an invitation to be the Taussig Research Professor at Harvard University for the academic year.Anne Royalty is doing research and teaching at Purdue University in Indiana. Thomas Sargent is a Visiting Scholar at Cal Tech University in Pasadena, CA.

GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS:

Engagement Announcements:

Clemens Sialm and Victoria Wei Li celebrated their engagement in Mendocino in August. The wedding will be in San Francisco in June, 2001. Third-year studentDavid Miller and Gao Hua became engaged during the summer. No wedding date has been set.

Wedding Announcements:

Fifth-year student Brent Goldfarb married Beth Rubens in Sonoma on June 11. Second-year student, Joao De Mello was married this summer in Brazil. His wife, Juliana, is now with him in the United States.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!

EGSA: We want to thank Jeremy Fox and Irena Asmundsen for the excellent job as EGSA chairs last year, and we congratulate Peter Coles and Matt Agard on being selected to serve this year.

Course Scheduling: Suzanne Gruber

Fall Grad Student Meeting: November 15, 2000, 5:15 pm.

Congratulations: Morten Sorenson is this year's recipient of the Forman Fellowship.

Terrific teaching: The winners of the Spring Quarter Outstanding TA awards were Jed Devaro, Giovanni Facchini, Hanno Lustig, Joana Meyer, Slavi Slavov and John Toth.

Alumni News:

Obituary: The Department's only alumnus to be awarded a Nobel Prize, John Harsanyi, died on August 11 in Berkeley. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford in 1959 under the direction of Ken Arrow. Harsany taught at UC Berkeley from 1964 until his retirement in 1990. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994.

Congratulations: A recent Ph.D. student from the Department, Rob McMillan, has been awarded first prize in the National Tax Association Dissertation Awards (an annual competition) for his dissertation on the subject of school quality and the provision of public schooling. His advisors were Tom Nechyba and John Pencavel. Rob is now at the University of Toronto.

Graduation, June 2000

The Economics Department held its commencement reception on June 11, 2000, at which we conferred 260 Bachelor of Arts degrees, 14 Masters degrees, and 32 Doctors of Philosophy. Our commencement speaker was Gavin Wright, the William Robertson Coe Professor of American Economic History. His speech emphasized the value of an economics major in a liberal arts education.

The John G. Sobieski Award for Creative Thinking in Economics was awarded at the commencement ceremony this year to Nathan Barczi, an undergraduate, for his honors thesis titled, "The ECB's Challenge: The Prospects for Symmetrical Monetary Policy Transmission in the European Monetary Union," His advisor is Ronald McKinnon.

Calendar of Events:
Autumn Quarter begins	Sept. 25
Student Orientation	Sept. 28 4-6 pm
Graduate student meeting	Nov. 15 5:15 pm
Thanksgiving recess	Nov. 23-24
Dead week	Dec. 4-10
End Quarter Exams	Dec. 11-15
Winter recess	Dec. 11-Jan. 3
Note: Dept. CLOSED	12/23/00 - 1/2/01
Winter Quarter begins	Jan. 8
ASSA mtgs. In New Orleans	Jan. 5-7
First day of instruction	Jan. 9
Skit Party	March 4
Spring Break	Mar. 24-April 1
Spring Quarter begins	April 2
Grad student flyouts	April 2
Arrow Lectures	April 30-May 1

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