Newsletter - August 2023
Economics Department
Welcome to our student-focused issue of the newsletter, where we celebrate the achievements of some of our outstanding students. This issue also features a short memoir of professor emeritus Adolf Buse, who had a brilliant academic career.
Additionally, we are pleased to share news of two staff awards.
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@UofA_Econ and
LinkedIn.
Undergraduate Students
- Let's start by celebrating Kayla Layden, who was bestowed with the Dr. John MacDonald Medal in Arts. This is the most prestigious Faculty of Arts medal, awarded to the student with the highest overall superior academic achievement in the BA Honors program.
Kayla Layden -
Diran Oyejide, Xinqian Yang, and Yitong Zhu have graduated in the Honors program of
Economics and been admitted to our MA in Economics.
Diran Oyejide
Xinqian Yang
Yitong Zhu - Kayla Stephenson, who was part of the team that won the 2023 Governor's Challenge
organized by the Bank of Canada, has secured an internship as a research assistant with the Bank of Canada.
Kayla Stephenson - Natasha Ting has been admitted as a PhD student to the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
- Ibk Saigbe, a former Economics Honors student, has been admitted with a full scholarship to the Master's in Global Affairs program of University of Toronto.
- Several Economics students have shared their experiences at the university and their prospects for future careers. You can read their stories below.
Current Graduate Students
- Four of our MA Economics students are starting PhD programs later this year.
Duncan Swedlo and Xiaoran Shi are entering our PhD program,
Shiteng Xu will
be starting his PhD at McMaster University, and Guanyu Liu will
be starting
his PhD at Queens University.
Duncan Swedlo
Guanyu Li
Shiteng Yu - Xiaoran Shi, Harmon Tamura, and Xiao Lu are beginning 8-months MITACS
internships at ATB Financial. Xiaoran and Harmon are completing their MA in Economics and
Xiao Lu is one of our doctoral students.
Harmon Tamura - Fang Li completed his candidacy exam in April 2023 and expects to be on the job market in Fall 2023. He is studying macroeconomic shocks and determinants of firms' investment decisions.
- Boris Ortega Moreno landed a two year post-doc position at the University of Luxembourg starting in Summer 2023. Boris's research
focuses on renewable energy.
Boris Ortega Moreno - Dr. Kwabena Bediako has secured a position at ATB Financial. Kwabena defended his thesis "Essays on Risk and Renewable Resource Management" in December 2023.
- Dr. Francis Chiparawasha has secured a position with Deloitte Canada. Francis defended his thesis "Employment Inequality, Labour Income Dynamics and Household Consumption" in November 2022.
- Three of our doctoral students presented their research at the recent Joint Symposium on Chinese Economy and Society, hosted by the Departments of Economics and East Asian Studies. Zi Fang presented her research on kindergarten subsidies in China. Yizhuang Sun presented his work on China's education matching system. And Xuan Cui presented her research on family size and the mental health of mothers in China
- Mona Sarhadi shares her experience as a MITACS internship at ATB Financial.
Mona Sarhadi
Kwabena Bediako
Alumni and Emeritus Professors
Our website now features a section on Professor Emeriti. Please visit here to learn more about their distinguished careers.
- Once an economist, always an economist. Here, you can find a short memoir of one of our emeriti professors, Adolf Buse.
Adolf Buse - UofA 1958
Adolf Buse - UofA 2023 - Matthew Son is starting a new job as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Finance at the University of South Florida. Matthew earned his Master's degree in Economics and Finance at University of Alberta, before joining the Ph.D. program in Finance at the University of Florida.
- Andrew R. Nigrinis, who completed his BA in our Economics Department, got a PhD in Economics from Stanford University and is now a Managing Principal Economist at Edgeworth Economics. here.
- Here you can find a note about our alumnus Ray Protti. Among his achievements, Ray is a former director of Canada's national intelligence agency CSIS, and was president and CEO of the Canadian Bankers Association. In the note, he also talks about his experience as a young scholar at the Bank of Canada
Events
- On May 25, 2023, the 2022-2023 Eric J. Hanson Memorial Lecture took place. It was an honour to receive Professor Thomas Lemieux from the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. The title of the talk was "Unions and Earnings Inequality in the 21st Century." Professor Lemieux talked about how the decline in unionization has contributed to growing inequality in Canada, the United States, and other countries. An important challenge when studying this question is that unionized firms are very different from other firms in terms of their size, industry composition, and profitability, making it difficult to assess the causal impact of unions on earnings. Professor Lemieux discussed how recent research has helped make progress on these issues.
- The Institute of Public Economics (IPE) held three workshops this spring.
- On March 13, Professor Andrew Leach presented a workshop titled "How much does the world need Canadian oil and gas? The oil sands and LNG in a climate-constrained world".
- On April 24, Professor Ashantha Ranasinghe talked about "Female entrepreneurship, distortions on production and economic development".
- On May 8, Professor Laurel Wheeler presented a workshop titled "Beyond Conventional Models: Lending by Native Community Development Financial Institutions."
- On March 10, the Departments of Economics and East Asian Studies jointly hosted a Symposium on Chinese Economy and Society.
Staff Award
Our department is fortunate to have such a dedicated and skilled staff!
- Diane Rogers won the Faculty of Arts Outstanding Staff Award.
- Christina Smith won the Faculty of Arts Outstanding Student Service Award.