Department of Economics News

27 April 2012:

A recent article in the journal Ecological Economics has ranked Professor Riccardo Scarpa the 28th most influential author in the field of environmental and ecological economics over the period 2000-2009. Ric had three articles that were ranked among the most influential articles in the field over that period, with his top-ranked article at #30. Given that over 6500 studies were included in the ranking exercise, this represents a highly significant achievement. Well done Ric!

21 March 2012:

Michael Cameron's research on the impacts of liquor outlets in Manukau City has been in the media again this week, with the formal release of the final reports by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand. Michael was interviewed by Lynn Freeman on Nine to Noon on Radio New Zealand, talking about this research, and a follow-up project on liquor outlet impacts across the North Island.

29 February 2012:

Congratulations to Dr Michael Cameron, who was awarded the Waikato Management School Dean's Award for Outstanding Emerging Scholar. This is the second time in three years that a staff member from the Economics Department has won this award. For further details on Michael's research that led to the award, see his staff profile or the University media advisory.

28 February 2012:

Professor Les Oxley's Marsden-funded research on body mass index as a measure of wellbeing has been in the news recently. See reports on the Stuff and NZ Herald websites.

2 December 2011:

The Department of Economics ran a Professional  Development Day for 26 Economics Teachers Thursday 1 December. This is the second year that we have offered this - encouraged by good attendance and positive feedback last year. This day also provided an opportunity for economics teachers to network and share experiences and teaching materials - especially important given the ongoing changes to the NCEA curriculum. Teachers from Hamilton, Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty attended the day. Presenters included Dr. Michael Cameron, Dr. Gazi Hassan, Dr. Graeme Doole (all from the Department of Economics), and Dan Rennie (Rennie Resources).

14 November 2011:

Congratulations to Rachelle Earwaker, who won the University of Waikato Department of Economics Prize for the top economics student at Tauranga Girls' College. Congratulations also to Ryan Smith, who won the same prize at Tauranga Boys' College. Rachelle and Ryan were also among the top students in one of our economics papers offered as part of the STAR (Secondary-Tertiary Alignment Resource) programme.

24 October 2011:

Congratulations to Basman Mahrizah for successfully defending his thesis (subject to minor amendments) on "Incorporation of Environmental Issues into Banks' Lending Decisions". Basman was supervised by Dr Dan Marsh.

Congratulations also to James Tee who has successfully completed his MPhil. James was supervised by Professor Riccardo Scarpa and Dan Marsh and wrote his thesis on a "Real options analysis of carbon forestry under the New Zealand emissions trading scheme". James is currently employed as a Sustainable Development Officer at the Rio+20 Secretariat, UN DESA, New York.

12 October 2011:

Congratulations to Professor John Gibson and Professor Riccardo Scarpa, who will receive a $765,000 Marsden Fund grant to investigate "The Impact of Behavioural and Environmental Change on Health: Indoor and Outdoor Pollution and Immigrant Asthma in New Zealand". This is an extremely good result for the department, as this proposal was one of only 88 proposal selected in the 2011 funding round, out of 250 full proposals invited from the 1078 preliminary applications submitted in February.

1 September 2011:

Congratulations to Professor John Gibson, who was awarded the Waikato Management School Dean's Award for Research Excellence. John if the fourth staff member from the Economics Department to win the award in the last five years. For further details on John's research that led to the award, see his staff profile or the University media advisory.

11 August 2011:

Dan Ammann, an economics graduate from the University of Waikato, was recently appointed Chief Financial Officer at General Motors, the world's second largest car manufacturer. You can read about Dan on the University's Alumni site.

4 August 2011:

Graeme Doole, Dan Marsh, and Thiagarajah Ramilan have released a new working paper: "Evaluation of Agri-Environmental Policies for Water Quality Improvement Accounting for Firm Heterogeneity".

Abstract: Policy makers worldwide are interested in the identification of cost-effective policy instruments to reduce diffuse pollution. A large economic model representing heterogeneous farms is used to evaluate a broad set of policies for reducing nitrate regulation within a large catchment dominated by dairy production. A policy instrument that allows the level of abatement to vary among producers according to differences in abatement cost is most cost-effective. The primary goal of 26 kg N ha-1 can be achieved at a cost of $15 ha-1 under this cap and trade policy, while a uniform cap on emissions for all farmers would be more than three times as expensive ($49 ha-1). In contrast, requiring uniform reductions in stocking rate, banning the application of nitrogen fertiliser, and land retirement perform poorly. These instruments are at least three times more costly than a cap and trade policy over all simulated reductions. Moreover, the differentiated policy does not greatly alter the distribution of farm profit, relative to what exists without regulation. The use of a large, complex economic model incorporating disaggregated farms provides unique insight into the economic benefits accruing to a differentiated policy.

 21 July 2011:

It has been a successful mid-year break for Waikato economics students.
 
First, Honours student Jaimee Phillips won the 2011 NZIER Student Poster Competition at the 52nd Annual Conference of the NZ Association of Economists, Amora Hotel, Wellington, 29 June - 1 July.  Her poster was entitled "Differences in returns to foreign and domestic education in New Zealand" and was based on student Summer Scholarship research supervised by Matt Roskruge and Jacques Poot.
 
Second, PhD student Steven Bond-Smith won the Student Presentation Award for his presentation of the paper "A regional model of growth with creative destruction" at the 22nd Pacific Regional Science Conference held in Seoul, Korea, 3-6 July, 2011.  Steven's supervisors are Philip McCann, Les Oxley and Jacques Poot.

Congratulations to both Jaimee and Steven!

13 July 2011:

The Department of Economics has three vacancies for new staff: (1) Post-Doctoral Fellow; (2) Lecturer/Senior Lecturer; and (3) Associate Professor/Professor.

You can read the advertisements and position descriptions (and apply for the positions) on the University of Waikato vacancies page.
 

10 July 2011:

The ECON100 Video Project was in the news again. The Bay of Plenty Times didn't bother to interview either of the ECON100 lecturers or any of the students involved though, so you might get a more balanced view of the project from the Dominion Post (it was also features in the print editions of the Waikato Times and Taranaki Daily News). To view the winning videos in our inaugural video project, go to our Prizes and Awards page.

10 May 2011:

Professor Riccardo Scarpa has been appointed to an international panel of experts advising the European Union's Regional Policy Directorate on how to measure the effect of cohesion policies from 2013. In his work for the EU, Professor Scarpa will prepare guidelines on how to use quantitative surveys to measure the impact of these policies on quality of life. Read more in this University of Waikato press release.