Promising Areas for Future Endowed Chairs
Given the leverage provided by an endowed chair, the department is open to a wide ranging discussion of research areas and questions that an endowed chair might support. Here, we provide some suggestions of research areas of current strategic interest to the department.
-
- Behavioral Economics
- This is an exciting new branch of economics that
examines how factors other than calculated self-interest
affect everyone’s economic behavior. Among other things,
these factors include notions of fairness, reciprocity,
revenge, and simple limits to humans’ cognitive capacities
to analyze complex decisions. Much of the research
is done via experiments, both in labs and in the field;
exciting recent work in this area uses MRI technology
to examine the brain activity of subjects engaged
in economic interactions. The effect of psychological factors in financial markets is an important area of behavioral research.
- Development Economics
- Large segments of the world's population continue
to live in abject poverty. What factors, including
shortages of investment of education, ineffective
political systems, corruption, and/or environmental
degradation, are most responsible for this, and how
best can the economic fortunes of the world's poorest
poor be improved? How helpful are microcredit and
microinsurance, compared for example to public health
programs or political reform? These are examples of
key questions in development economics. The department
currently has two young scholars working in this field;
our senior scholar is expected to retire shortly.
An endowed chair would provide needed department leadership
in this area.
- Econometrics
- This is one of the basic three M’s (micro-, macro-,
and ‘metrics) taught in the first year of every economics
Ph.D. program; it is where students learn the statistical
methods required to analyze data and test hypotheses.
Using an endowed chair to Increase our department’s
strengths in econometrics would strengthen us in all
other areas because this area is so foundational to
our discipline.
- Environmental Economics
- Environmental Economics studies some of the most
important questions facing modern societies. For example,
what are the tradeoffs - if any - between economic
growth and environmental quality? Given any goal for
emissions reduction, what is the most cost-effective
way to attain it? How can markets (including, for
example, tradable emissions permits) best be used
to achieve environmental goals most efficiently? In
collaboration with the Bren school, UCSB’s economics
department is a world class center in environmental
economic research.
- Financial Economics
- Financial economics studies asset markets of all
kinds. This field offers at least two unique opportunities
for growth at UCSB. One is the presence of department
members Rajnish Mehra and Steve Leroy, who have made
internationally-recognized contributions to this field.
The other is the presence on campus of the Center
for Research in Financial Mathematics and Statistics
(CRFMS). A chairholder in Financial Economics would
both interact in mutually beneficial ways with this
new Center.
- Industrial Organization (IO)
- Industrial organization studies the behavior of
firms and their regulators, asking such questions
as how regulation affects innovation, investment and
profits, or how mergers affect consumers. UCSB’s IO
economists include a former Chief Economist and Director
of the Bureau of Economics at the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission. Understanding the strategic behavior of
firms in an increasingly more complex economic and
regulatory environment is clearly an essential component
of any economics education. Industries of special
interest to the department include information technology,
health care, and pharmaceuticals; the role of intellectual
property rights in knowledge-based industries is also
a key emerging research area.
- International Economics
- As all markets are becoming global, all of economics
is becoming international. An endowed chair in international
economics would thus be instrumental in keeping the
department at the cutting edge of research and teaching.
- Labor economics
- Labor economists study the economics of work and
pay, including the effects of regulation (such as
minimum wage laws, overtime restrictions, and antidiscrimination
laws) on labor markets. Sound public policy in labor
markets is essential for a healthy economy, and labor
economists’ scientific study of labor markets is key
to the formation of such policy. UCSB has a strong,
young research group in labor economics and a senior
chair would complement that group very well.
- Macroeconomics
- Macroeconomics is the study of growth and business
cycles in aggregate (i.e., national) economies. As
is widely known, UCSB’s Finn Kydland was recently
awarded the Nobel Prize for his research in macroeconomics.
UCSB hosts Kydland’s Laboratory for Aggregate Economics
(LAEF), a developing world center in this specialty.
Together, these factors would make an endowed chair
in macroeconomics a wise investment.
- Public Economics
- The field of public economics studies the economics
of government and its impact on the economy, including,
for example, the effects of taxation on economic activity,
and the effectiveness of government spending programs.
Among other contributions, UCSB’s specialists in public
economics have shed important light on the economics
and politics of California’s public schools. Given
the massive and multidimensional impact of governments
on all modern economies, a research chair in public
economics could have important social benefits.
|
|
