News 2011-2012

Congratulations to Fadi Hassan, a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Economics and PhD student at the Department of International Development, who has won the prestigious FEEM award for his paper "The Price of Development"!

On August 29, 2012, the FEEM Award was conferred for the fourth year during the European Economic Association (EEA) Annual Congress at the University of Malaga in Spain.

FEEM stands for Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and the prize used to be called the Young Economist Prize. The prize is given to the authors of the three best papers presented by young economists at the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association.

A short description of Fadi's paper is below:

"The Price of Development": The Penn effect is the stylized fact that richer countries also face higher price levels, with the Balassa-Samuelson model of sectoral differences in productivity growth providing the most well known explanation for this pattern. Fadi Hassan revisits this empirical pattern and shows an important nonlinearity: it turns out that the price-income relation is actually negative for low income countries before turning positive at higher levels of development. Hassan shows that this non-linear pattern can be explained by a development process by which productivity growth is initially concentrated in agriculture, which tends to be largely a non-tradable sector in low-income countries.

For further information on the award, please visit the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei pages.

For further information on Fadi's research, please visit his personal webpage.

August 2012

The British Academy has today announced that its next president from July 2013 will be Nicholas Stern, I G Patel Professor of Economics and Government and chair of a number of research centres at London School of Economics and Political Science.

Welcoming the news, Professor Judith Rees CBE, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “I am extremely happy that the UK’s premier institution for the humanities and social sciences has elected Nicholas Stern to lead it. Nick has a very distinguished career not only in the academic study of economics but also its application at the highest levels in organisations such as the World Bank and in Her Majesty’s Treasury. While he is perhaps known best for his work on climate change, Nick has an outstanding research record in public policy and development economics spanning more than 40 years.
It is a great privilege for LSE to have the president of the British Academy among its staff, and it is appropriate that Nick delivered our prestigious Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures earlier this year. I am personally very pleased about Nick’s election, and I am sure he will bring not only his tremendous intellect to the role but also his vast experience, sheer commonsense and good humour.
The humanities and social sciences, as well as higher education in general, face some very important challenges and I am sure that we will be in a better position to meet them with Nick leading the British Academy in the UK and abroad."

Lord Stern said: "I am honoured to have been elected President by the Fellows of the British Academy. The UK is fortunate in having world-class expertise in the humanities and social sciences with a vital part to play in understanding and tackling the many challenges faced in this country and the world as a whole. Further, these subjects are essential both to the quality of life and to the understanding of the reality and the potential, of individuals and societies. I look forward to working with the Fellows and staff of the Academy – the national leader for these disciplines – to advance the interests of outstanding scholarship and research, and to demonstrate their value and importance."

For further information, please visit the LSE News and Media and the British Academy news pages.

July 2012

The Department would like to offer its congratulations to all students who have successfully completed their degree programmes this summer. The following students have achieved particularly outstanding results, receiving First Class Honours in all papers sat over each year of study:

Johannes Paul Dolfen - BSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Yoke Suen Kan – BSc Economics
Harshil Shah - BSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Neil Shah – BSc Economics

The Department wishes its students all the best in their future endeavours.

July 2012

This year, the Graduation Ceremony for undergraduate and 9-month Masters students will take place on Thursday 12 July at 2pm at the Peacock Theatre.

There will be a reception immediately after the ceremony in one of the following venues: Fourth Floor Restaurant, New Academic Building, Shaw Library. The students ticket will show the exact venue.

Please visit the LSE student pages for further information on the Ceremony and on the the Reception.

July 2012

The Department of Economics is delighted to announce that the title of Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics has been bestowed upon Professor Francesco Caselli.

 

Formerly held by Charles Goodhart and Christopher Pissarides, the Norman Sosnow Chair was established in 1985 by prominent journalist and businessman Eric Sosnow in memory of his son Norman who died in an air crash in 1967 at the age of 23. Eric Sosnow, a graduate research student at LSE in 1936, and later a governor and honorary fellow of the School, also established travelling scholarships in his son’s name. 

Professor Caselli joined the Economics Department in 2004 and is renowned for his work in macroeconomics, development economics and economic growth. He took up the title of Norman Sosnow Chair on 1 June 2012 and will deliver a public lecture to mark his appointment at the start of the next academic year. Commenting on his appointment, Professor Caselli said, “This is a great honour for me. It is also a bit scary considering that the previous holders have been Charles Goodhart and Chris Pissarides! There is no way I can match their achievements but I will try not to embarrass them.”

For further information about the Norman Sosnow Chair, please visit our Named chairs webpage.

June 2012

We are proud to announce the winners and the runners up of the Departmental class teacher awards for 2012.

These awards recognise the special contribution made by graduate teaching assistants, teaching fellows and guest teachers to LSE's academic departments. The winners were nominated by the departments themselves as a result of exceptional feedback from students, lecturers and other department members.

The 2012 winners for the Department of Economics are:

• Magda Zurkowska
• Jonathan de Quidt
• Abhimanyu Gupta

And the runners up for Economics are:

• John Barrdear
• Thomas Carr
• Igor Cesarec
• Katarzyna Grabowska
• Fadi Hassan
• Felix Koenig
• Alexander Lembcke
• Luis Martinez
• Revi Panidha
• Mazhar Waseem 

June 2012

Professor Danny Quah has become the latest LSE academic to give a lecture for TEDxLSE, on 17 March 2012.

 

The lecture entitled: "Global Tensions from a Rising East", examines the "Great Shift East" and its implications for global economic policy.  

You can view the lecture on the TEDxLSE YouTube Channel. 

June 2012

We are very sad to report that Brian Hindley, who was a Reader in Trade Policy at the Economics Department from 1967 to 1998, and also taught at the Department of International Relations between 2000 and 2007, died earlier this month.

He was considered the UK's foremost academic expert on the economics of commercial policy and worked on many areas including voluntary export restraints, trade in services and industrial policy. 

An obituary by Martin Wolf has been published in the Financial Times entitled: Doughty campaigner for free trade and economic liberty.

May 2012

Christopher Pissarides was appointed as a School Professor of Economics and Political Science on 1 April 2012.

Chirs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2010 for his work on the economics of unemployment, especially job flows and the effects of being out of work.

The position of School Professor recognises those individuals who are of world stature in their field, with a hefty body of publications behind them, and a reputation for forging significant links with other disciplines. Scholl Professors have direct responsibility to the Director for initiating and fostering interdisciplinary research and teaching in order to strengthen the intellectual life of the School as a whole. 

May 2012

Following a review of its composition by Sir Alan Budd (formerly of the MPC at the Bank of England), Dr Silvana Tenreyro has been appointed to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Mauritius.

Silvana, who is also the Director of the Macroeconomics Programme at the International Growth Centre, and sits on the editorial board of several journals, will serve as one of its five new independent external members. We wish her every success in the role.

May 2012

Warm congratulations to Dr Myung Hwan Seo, who has been awarded the Korea-America Economics Association's Young Scholar Award 2012, jointly with Kyoungwon Seo (Northwestern University).

The award seeks to recognise young scholars' academic accomplishments and to foster scholarship in economics.

Myung, who joined the Economics Department in 2004, specialises in time series econometrics, especially threshold models; his research has been published in Econometric Theory and the Journal of Econometrics. He was presented with the award at a ceremony held during the Annual Meeting of the KAEC in Chicago on January 6, 2012, so apologies to Myung for the delay in acknowledging his well-deserved achievement.

May 2012

Global Policy and the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN) have announced the winner of the 2011 Best Article Prize. The winner is Professor Danny Quah, author of "The Global Economy's Shifting Centre of Gravity" (Vol 2, Issue 1, January 2011).

The article finds that in 1980 the global economy's centre of gravity was mid-Atlantic yet, by 2008 that centre had drifted to a location east of Helsinki and Bucharest. Extrapolating growth in almost 700 locations worldwide, the article projects the world's economic centre of gravity to be located between India and China by 2050.

May 2012

The Complete University Guide has ranked the LSE Economics Department first among UK Economics departments for undergraduate education.

For further information, visit the Complete University Guide rankings.

May 2012

Minimum wage now lower than eight years ago

This year's planned increase in the national minimum wage will leave it lower than it was in 2004 after inflation is taken into account, according to a new report by Professor Alan Manning for the independent think tank the Resolution Foundation.

The report, Minimum wage: Maximum Impact, acknowledges that recent caution on increases is justified but finds the impact of the national minimum wage (NMW) has now stalled. Citing overwhelming evidence that the national minimum wage has reduced wage inequality without damaging employment, Professor Manning considers options for future reform to ensure maximum impact without risking job losses. These ideas will be considered by the Resolution Foundation's Commission on Living Standards as it works towards its final report in the autumn.

For further information and full copies of the press release and the report, please visit the LSE News and Events pages.

April 2012

We are pleased to announce details of the next LSE Open Day for prospective undergraduate students.

The event has been designed to ensure that you get all of the information you need to make a well-informed choice about university.

Come and meet academic staff from the Department of Economics at the LSE undergraduate Open Day next Wednesday 21 March.

Please see Open Day to book a place. 

March 2012

Professor Tim Besley and Professor David Soskice have been announced as the first LSE School Professors.

Professor Tim Besley, who started his role on 1 January, is School Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Professor David Soskice, who will join LSE in September from the University of Oxford, will be School Professor linked to Department of Government.

The School Professors Scheme provides the capacity to attract or retain scholars of outstanding international distinction in their field. Candidates are scholars of world stature in the relevant subject, have a substantial body of publications, have demonstrated a high level of originality in scholarship, and have shown an ability to forge significant links with other disciplines. They have direct responsibility to the Director for initiating and developing interdisciplinary research, teaching and other appropriate academic activities in order to strengthen the intellectual life of the School community as a whole.

Professor Danny Quah has also been appointed as Kuwait Professor of Economics and Political Science, and will be leading the Kuwait Programme at LSE.

January 2012

Professor Oriana Bandiera of the Department of Economics takes up her new position as Director of STICERD this term. 

Oriana, who works in applied microeconomics, especially (but not exclusively) in development and organization economics, joined the Economics Department as a Lecturer in 1999, and has been here ever since. 

 During that time, she has held visiting positions at the universities of Chicago, New York, Yale and Stockholm. Apart from being a Co-Director of the Economic Organization and Public Policy programme at STICERD, she is Co-Director of the State Capabilities Research Programme at the International Growth Centre. She is also a fellow of several research networks and serves on the board of editors of the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of Development Economics, Economica and the Economic Journal.

As Director of STICERD, one of her main responsibilities will be to allocate funds to promote research in economics and related disciplines across the school. STICERD funds finance numerous research activities, such as conferences, academic visits, special lectures, research grants and students' grants; she will report to the STICERD steering committee, whose members represent the different STICERD constituencies.

When asked about the issues she feels will be important to STICERD and the Department of Economics over the next few years, she highlighted the need to attract and retain the very best staff. "(We) are at the top of economics research in Europe and among the best worldwide. To stay at the top it is key to keep all research fields staffed both at the senior and junior level, and to provide the best conditions for our researchers to develop their ideas into projects."

"It is a great honour to be asked to head this amazing research community, and to follow on the footsteps of the previous directors who have created an incredibly vibrant research environment here in STICERD", she added. 

Oriana replaces Professor Tim Besley, who served as Director of STICERD from 2000-2011. Professor Besley added: 'I am delighted that Professor Bandiera is taking on this task. STICERD is an important resource for LSE and one of its oldest research centres; it is good to know that it will be in such capable hands'.

STICERD's previous directors were Professor Michio Morishima, Professor Sir Tony Atkinson, Professor Lord Nicholas Stern and Professor Howard Glennerster.

January 2012

Mark Blaug who taught in the department in the 1960s died on November 18th.

He was probably best known for his book on the history of economic thought, 'Economic Theory in Retrospect'. He had a fine sense of the history of our subject that is probably missing from most of us today.

There will be a memorial gathering of Mark's friends and colleagues at the Reading Room at the British Academy at 6pm on January 19th. 

December 2011

Date: Tuesday 6 December 2011
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Royal Institution
Chair: former Chancellor of the Exchequer and President of the ERC Lord Lamont  Speakers: Professors John Muelbauer (Oxford), M Hashem Pesaran (Cambridge) and Danny Quah (LSE)                     

The Economic Research Council presents the first annual: Clash of Titans: Economic Predictions for 2012 (Oxford vs. Cambridge vs. LSE), chaired by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lamont, Professors John Muelbauer (Oxford), M Hashem Pesaran (Cambridge) and Danny Quah (LSE) will be representing the top three economics departments in the country, giving their thoughts on past and present aspects of the UK and the global economy, and making their predictions for what to expect in 2012.

For more information please go to the Economic Research Council page. 

December 2011