|
Back
 Welcome
New and Returning Students to the Fall 2008 Semester
Thanks to all alumni in keeping the Department up
to date on your continued success.
MESSAGE
FROM THE CHAIR
It has been another full year.
The Department has
been fortunate enough to have 6 visiting scholars this year, 5
from our partner institution, Liaoning University in Shenyang, China and
Professor Borda from the Centro de Analysis y Difusion de las Economic
Paraguaya. These visiting
scholars provided a great opportunity for our students as Professor
Borda team taught a course on Latin American Political Economy with Dr.
Richards and Professor Xing taught a course on the Chinese Economy.
I was in China in December recruiting students for a possible
joint degree program with Liaoning University in which the Chinese
students would spend their second and third years at ISU and their first
and last years at Liaoning University.
Hopefully a few students will arrive here this fall with the
program really getting started fall 2009.
It is sad for me to announce that Professor Aimin Chen has
decided to make her job as VP for Finance at Sichuan University
permanent and has resigned her position at ISU.
We miss her and will continue to feel here absence as we recruit
more students from China.
The faculty continues its success at scholarly publication and
winning grants; you can see some of these publications listed in this
newsletter. I’m also happy
that this edition will include an update on two of our graduates,
Christopher Gan and Michael Goldsby, both of whom earned master’s
degrees from our department.
Both these graduates have been quite successful since leaving ISU
as have many others. With
that in mind, please take a moment to send us an email and let us know
what you have been doing since you left ISU.
We will include a couple of these alumni updates in each edition
of the newsletter.
I
would like to ask all our alums who read this edition of the newsletter
to send us their current contact information (both e-mail and snail mail
addresses
mwoods@indstate.edu ).
We are trying to put together a data base so that we can send
these newsletters to as
many alumni as possible.
John
A Note from the Editor
Since
our last newsletter there has been a lot of activity in the Department
of Economics at Indiana State University.
We continue to offer a full slate of courses, to serve on a
variety of college and university committees and governance bodies, and
to engage in our scholarship.
The economists at ISU are an energetic group, and this year we
have had several visiting economists from abroad working with us on
campus. I will resist the
urge to tell you all the details, but in the paragraphs below you can
get to know
our many visitors through brief introductions and read about some
highlights of the Department’s recent work.
 Visiting
Economists from Abroad
We
must have made a good impression with Liaoning University’s economists,
as every year they send us more visitors to engage in programs of
instruction and research.
For the fall 2007 semester we hosted a total of four:
Yuan Yuan Xing, Xianfeng Huang, Li Zhang, and Jinmei Chen.
Dr. Xing taught our course on the Chinese Economy during the
fall, but she has now moved on to Arizona State University before
returning home to Shenyang this summer.
Dr.’s Huang, Zhang and Chen are still with us and will be staying
through the summer.
Although Dr. Xing has left, another visiting scholar arrived in the
spring semester Ligang Liu.
Our Latin American connections were also evident.
Don Richards arranged for one of his professional colleagues in
Paraguay to join us for the fall semester as a Fulbright Scholar. Dr.
Diôysio “Dio” Borda was engaged
in research here while co-teaching a special seminar on Latin American
political economy. Below are brief biographical sketches of our
visitors. We have been
pleased and honored to have them with us and hope there will be
occasions in the future to
see them again.
Yuan
Yuan Xing
Dr. Xing grew up in Shenyang, China and pursed university studies there
at Liaoning University, receiving three degrees:
a Bachelor’s in International trade and both Master’s and
Ph. D. in World Economy.
She is a professor in Liaoning’s College of International Relations and
Chairperson of the Department of World Economy, where she teaches on
world economy as well as on the U.S. economy. While at ISU she taught
our course on the Chinese Economy and worked with John Conant on
developing the 1+2+1 program mentioned below.
Her research interests lies in technological innovation and how
institutional change affects economic performance.
She was surprised in the U.S. by huge markets for Chinese
products that she found in California, and she is also intrigued by the
openness and diversity of American society.
Jinmei
Chen
Dr. Chen also grew up in Shenyang and also received degrees from
Liaoning University. Her
Bachelor’s degree was in accounting systems, economic planning and
economic statistics, her Master’s degree was in national economic
management, and she
was granted a Ph.D. in the field of macroeconomic modeling.
She is currently a Professor of Economics in the College of
Economics at Liaoning University, where she teaches courses in
statistics, systems of national economic accounts and analysis of
macroeconomic statistics as well
as in computer software for statistical analysis.
During her time at ISU she has attended a number of courses as an
auditing student and has pursued her research interest in the economics
of Chinese telecommunications policy. An interest she hopes to pursue in
the future is study of Computible General Equilibrium models.
What particularly strikes her about American culture is our
directness in communication style and the kindness
that people in Terre Haute
extend to strangers.
Li
Zhang
Dr.
Zhang also grew up in Shenyang but pursued her undergraduate studies in
the northeast region of China.
Her Bachelor’s degree in money and banking is from Jilin
University. Both of her
graduate degrees are from Liaoning University:
a Master’s in international finance and a Ph.D. in finance.
She is currently both a
teacher and manage at Liaoning University.
She is a Professor of Finance in the College of Economics and the
Vice Director of that college’s Department of Scientific Research.
Her teaching includes course on money and banking, comparative
financial systems, financial economics and financial development.
While at ISU she has been attending classes and pursuing research
on financial development in transitional economics.
Dr. Zhang has been struck by the consumer possibilities in
America. The purchase of a
round trip ticket for travel is possible (not so in China) and
everything can be done by the internet.
Xianfeng
Huang
Dr. Huang grew up in the city
of Nanjiang in Sichuan Province, one of the mountainous regions of
China. He has an
undergraduate degree in mathematics from Sichuan Normal University, and
he received graduate degrees from Liaoning University:
a
Master’s in mathematics and a Ph. D. in economics.
He also studied population
and development at the Institute
of Social Studies and economics at Tilburg University, both in the
Netherlands. He is a
Professor in the College of Economics at Liaoning University, where he
teaches courses on mathematical economics, econometrics, advanced
macroeconomics, and theories of economic growth.
He is also a member of
the research staff of Liaoning University’s
Center for Comparative Economic
Systems. While at ISU he
has been engaged in translation of economics textbooks from English into
Chinese. His research
interest lies in the theory and determinants of economic growth with
special focus on the appropriate role of government.
He has been particularly
struck by the strength of family structure in American culture.
We are very pleased that, since January 2008, Xianfeng has been
joined in his American adventure by his wife, Wei Gao, and son, Zhonghan.
Ligang
Liu
Dr. Liu has been at ISU since
February this year. He is
Dean & Professor of Sun Wha International Business School, Liaoning
University, Shenyang, China.
Dr. Liu has engaged in abundant consulting with private
businesses in China and presented a special seminar on the evolution of
Chinese private enterprise in late April.
Diônysio
Borda
Dr. Borda came to ISU as a Fulbright Scholar, bringing us a wealth of
practical experience in Latin American economics.
He was formerly the Minister of Finance of Paraguay and he is
currently director of a think-tank he founded there:
CADEP – Centro de Analysis y Difusion de la Economia Paraguay.
“Dio” is no stranger to the U.S. having received a Master’s
degree
in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. form
the university of Massachusetts at Amherst.
His tenure as Finance Minister
was during Paraguay’s economic crisis of 2003-05, a time of large fiscal
deficits, long-term recession
and accelerating inflation.
His graduate education served him well in crisis in coping with the
Paraguay’s economic difficulties; using a three-pronged policy approach
the government prevented the Paraguayan from developing into a
catastrophe. At ISU his
chief responsibility as a Fulbright Scholar was to co-teach (with Dr.
Donald Richards) our course on Latin American Political Economy last
fall. He also was engaged
in developing research proposals to support funding for CADEP. He is
appreciative of the assistance provided by ISU’s
Office of Sponsored Programs in his search for funding.
HOME
Our Faculty Abroad
Not
only did we host several international visitors, some of our own
professors were engaged in activities abroad.
Rick Lotspeich spent five weeks in Northern Ireland under the
sponsorship of the American Philosophical Society pursing a case study
on the economics of conflict.
Chairperson John Conant was on the campus of Liaoning University
in Shenyang, China working out details of the 1+2+1 program for Chinese
undergraduates to engage in study of economics at ISU. Under this
program undergraduates will study their first year at Liaoning
University, followed by two years of study at ISU, and then a final year
of study at Liaoning. We
hope to become a regular host of such students from Liaoning University.
He returned to China in March with a group of K-12 educational
leaders on a trip sponsored by Global Indiana to help Indiana schools
connect with Chinese partner schools.
Paul Burkett spent three weeks in Mexico, where he was invited by
the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitian-Xochimilco (Mexico City) to
lecture on
ecological economics and engage Mexican students on the political
economy of ecological issues.
He also served as the keynote speaker for a conference there on
ecological economics. Latin
societies in particular take great interest in Dr. Burkett’s research on
ecology and Marxism. In
addition to his activities in Mexico, he was interviewed about his work
by a Portuguese website, The
Daily, published at
www.oriario.info (July 24, 2007, in Portuguese) and at http://mrzine.monthly
review.org (April 24, 2007, in English).
He was also interviewed for an article on ecological socialism in
the Brazilian left magazine Carta
Capital, October 2, 2007 (in Portuguese).
(See the notes below on the new Venezuelan edition of his
co-authored book:
China and Socialism).
Professional
Conferences
Our faculty continued to put stress on ISU’s travel budget by attending
professional conferences.
Rick Lotspeich attended the National Prostitution Conference at the
University of Toledo in September.
He is developing a special session for next year’s conference on
recent research into the economics of commercial sex markets.
In September 2007 Debra Israel presented her paper,
“Gender,
Household Decision-Making and Environmental Giving”, to the
Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics conference in Ames, Iowa.
She also presented this paper in
a session sponsored by the Association of Environmental and Resource
Economists in New Orleans during early January and at the meetings of
the Midwest Economics Association (MEA) in March 2008.
Bassam Yousif also attended the annual meetings in New Orleans of
the Allied Social Science Association.
ISU
was well represented at the annual meetings of the Midwest Economic
Association in Chicago during March.
In addition to Dr. Israel’s paper mentioned earlier, she
organized a conference
session at the MEA meetings on:
Gender, Intra-household
Decision-making, and Valuing Environmental Benefits.
She presented another paper in this session, “Gender
Households and Valuing Environmental Benefits”
and Rick Lotspeich helped out as discussant for a paper on
drinking water choices.
Three of our Chinese visitors also attended the MEA meetings.
Xianfeng Huang presented a paper, “The
Size of the SOE Sector and Economic Growth:
An Empirical Study Based on Provincial Data of China.”
Li Zhang presented her research
on rural credit cooperatives in China:
Restructuring Rural Credit
Cooperatives in China:
Peasants’ Concerns and the Efficiency of Credit Allocation.”
Katrina Davis also attended the MEA meetings, chairing a paper
session on:
Young Adult Risk Behaviors
and serving as discussant for a paper on migration in nonmetropolitan
countries of the American Great Plains.
One special feature of the MEA annual meetings is the inclusion
of undergraduate research papers.
The MEA is very student-friendly, and we encourage our economics
students to attend this
professional conference (it is generally held within driving distance of
Terre Haute) and to consider submitting a research paper.
Environmental Economics
Field Trips and Speakers
Our
visiting Chinese scholars accompanied students in Environmental
Economics on a trip last October to the Terre Haute Wastewater Treatment
Plant. Robert Elkins (plant
manager) discussed improvements occurring at the plant, such as
converting from anaerobic to aerobic digesters, which will help reduce
the odor problems associated with the plant.
In addition to explaining the details of the treatment process
during the facilities tour, Mr. Elkins outlined the importance of
wastewater treatment capacity to economic development in Terre Haute.
Right here on campus students learned about environmental
improvements promoted by the University through visits to ISU’s power
plant and recycling center.
George Needham, director of the Vigo County Air Pollution
Control, spoke to the class about the status of air pollution in Vigo
County and Indiana. This
class also heard form Rick Lotspeich, who spoke to them on the costs and
benefits of bat preservation, a project in which he is collaborating
with faculty in the Department of Ecology and Organismal Biology. These
varied speakers and visits bring an applied perspective to the textbook
and classroom discussions of the economics of environmental regulations.
STUDENT
AWARDS
Many
of our students in Economics work hard, but each spring we select three
of the top performers for our annual awards.
Ann Arthur was
selected as our Outstanding Senior this year.
The Mitchell Scholarship was awarded to
Justen Rollo, and
Ryan Grossman was selected
to receive the Gemmecke Scholarship.
Congratulations to you all.
(We know that economics is not easy.)
CONGRATULATIONS
TO ALL!
 Recent
Faculty Research & Scholarly Pursuits
To see additional recent scholarly work, check out the bulletin board in
front of the Econ Dept. HH Rm 277 or previous
newsletter editions.
Paul Burkett
“China,
Capitalist Accumulation, and Labor.”
Coauthored with Martin Hard-Landsberg,
Monthly Review,
May 2007.
“Classical Marxism and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.:
Coauthored with John Bellamy Foster.
Organization & Environment,
v.21, n. 1, March 2008, pp. 3-37.
“The Podolinsky Myth:
An Obituary“
Coauthored with John Bellamy Foster.
Forthcoming in Historical
Materialism.
Paul’s
book, China and Socialism,
(coauthored with Martin Hart-Landsberg) has now appeared in a Venezuelan
edition published by the Centro Interacional Miranda in Caracas.
This book has now been published in seven different foreign
editions.
John Conant
“Going
Flat: The Changing Dynamics
and Integrative Nature of Geography in the Digital Classroom” with Jay
Gatrell, in Digital Geography:
“Geospatial Technologies in the Social Studies Classroom”
Information Age Publishing I,
2008, pp. 197-211
Debra
Israel
“Impact
of Increased Access and Price on Household Water Use in Urban Bolivia.”
The Journal of Environment and Development, v. 16, n.1, March
2007.
“Charitable Donations:
Evidence of Demand for Environmental Protection?”
International
Advances in Economic Research, v. 13, n. 2, DOI
10.1007/s11294-007-9080-4, May 2007.
“Environmental Participation in the U.S.
Sulfur Allowance Auctions.”
Environmental and Resource Economics, v. 38, n. 3, DOI
10.1007/s10640-007-9079-6, November 2007.
Richard
Lotspeich
“Economic
Integration of China and Russia in the Post-Soviet Era.”
Forthcoming in James Bellacqua, ed.,
China-Russia Relations in the
Early 21st Century.
Armonk, New York: M.E.
Sharpe.
Book Review: Institutions
and Norms in Economic Development, ed. By Mark Gradstein and Kai A.
Konrad. Forthcoming in
Comparative Economic Studies.
Book Review
Size, Causes and Consequences of the Underground Economy:
An International Perspective, ed. by Christopher Bajada and
Friedrich Schneider. In
Comparative Economic Studies,
vol. 49, no.1, pp. 161-163, 2007.
Donald
Richards
“Transition
and Reform in a Predatory State:
The Case of Paraguay.”
Forthcoming in Journal of
Policy Reform.
“Economics
and “Nature’s Standard”: Wes Jackson and The Land Insitute.”
Forthcoming in Review of
Radical Political Economy.
Bassam
Yousif
“Economic
Restructuring in Iraq:
Intended and Unintended Consequences.”
Journal of Economic Issues,
vol. 41 no. 1, March 2007, pp. 43-60. “Development, Industrial:
The Middle East and North Africa.”
In the Encyclopedia of the
Modern World, Oxford University Press, 2008 (invited
submission).
Alumni Update
Christopher
E.C. Gan (MS Economics, Indiana State University -1988)
Chris
earned a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Louisiana State University
in 1993. He is currently an
Associate Professor of Economics in the Commerce Division of Lincoln
University, Canterbury, New Zealand.
Chris’s research interests include natural resource and
environmental economics, eco-tourism, recreation demand analysis, Asian
financial economics and governance and corruption in developing
economies.
He has published four book chapters and more than 30 scholarly articles
since 2000 in such peer reviewed journals as: Journal of Innovative
Marketing, Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies,
American Journal of Applied Sciences, Journal of Economic Policy
Reforms, Journal of Innovative Marketing, Review of Development
and Cooperation, Banks and Bank Systems, Journal of Social
Sciences, International
Finance Review, and The Australian Economic Review.
Chris has also won a number of teaching awards, including:
Lincoln University’s Excellence in Teaching Award, 2007 and the New
Zealand Tertiary Teaching
Excellence Award for
Sustained Excellence in Teaching (at the National Level), 2003.
Michael
G. Goldsby (MS Economics, Indiana State University, 1992)
Michael
earned a PhD in Management from Virginia Tech in 1998.
He is currently an Associate Professor and The Stoops
Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Miller College of
Business, Ball State University in Muncie, IN.
Michael’s research interests include entrepreneurship, strategic
management, social issues in management/ business Ethics, Organization
Theory, and international management.
Since 2000, Mike has
published 16 peer reviewed articles in such scholarly journals as:
Journal of Management History,
International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Business &
Society, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of
Management Education, Group and Organization Management, Journal of
Business Ethics,
Journal of Small Business Management,
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Journal
of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, Journal of Managerial
Psychology,
and the Eastern Economic Journal.
He
is certified in Simplex creativity and innovation training by
Basadur Applied Creativity. Michael was recognized in the 2002, 2004,
and 2005 “Who’s Who Among
America’s Teachers” and was the 2002, 2003, and 2004 Recipient of
the Coleman Scholarship for U.S.A.S.B.E.
NEW COURSE
Fall 2008
ECON
498 : Food, Hunger and
Sustainable Agriculture.
Dr. Richards will be teaching
the course and it will provide students with opportunities for group and
individual research and is committed to the goals of experiential
learning and community engagement.
Questions that will be explored include:
How do we measure under- nutrition and malnutrition? What has
happened to the structure of American agriculture over the past 100
years? Who has benefited
from the US policy of agricultural subsidies?
Why are hunger and obesity
political as well as economic problems?
In what ways has the industrial food system become a global
system? Does technology
provide the answer to our food problems?
Are there alternatives to the industrial food system?
What is meant by Community Supported Agriculture?
Center
for Economic
Education
The Center has had another busy year.
We gave two workshops last summer, one on basic economic concepts
for K-5 teachers, and a 3 day workshop on globalization for middle and
high school social studies teachers at McCormick’s Creek State Park.
The Center also provided one-day workshops on globalization in
Terre Haute, Gary, and Columbus this past year.
We had a very successful workshop on the Ethics and Economics of
Immigration in our yearly workshop for clergy and friends at the United
Ministry Center and gave popular workshops on Teaching Economics with
Children’s Literature.
Professor Conant was fortunate enough to be a part of a two day workshop
for elementary grade teachers in March at the primary school attached to
Peking University in Beijing.
This summer the Center will be giving its normal K-5 workshop,
but is also joining with ISU’s Biology Department in offering a workshop
for secondary science and social studies teachers with an eight day
field experience at Yellowstone, emphasizing the science and economic
aspects involved in conflicts over several land use issues at the park.
Teachers will be speaking with a number of advocacy groups as
well as scientific experts and experts from the National Park Service so
they can get a better idea of how public decisions are actually made in
such cases. A report
on this innovative workshop will be included in the next newsletter.
John Conant, Director
Back
| 