econ2014 WHAT'S NEXT FACULTY FEATURE JOHN BURBIDGE GRAD: BEHNOUSH AMERY ALUMNI: KRISHNA PATEL UNDERGRAD: SOPHIE COTE presented by

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1 UWeconomics ISSUE 02 / MARCH 2014 econ2014 WHAT'S NEXT FACULTY FEATURE JOHN BURBIDGE GRAD: BEHNOUSH AMERY ALUMNI: KRISHNA PATEL UNDERGRAD: SOPHIE COTE presented by

2 2 MESSAGE from ECONSOC Get excited for March! You may have noticed that our society was somewhat quiet this term, not too much mayhem, not too many events. Be not afraid, we have been working hard to bring one firework of an event that will combine networking, informative keynotes, and career exploration. But I am getting aead of myself, I will let you find out about this exciting event as you continue to read. For now, we want to say thank you to those who supported the UWeconomics newsletter during its launch and those who keep supporting it now as we establish it. A special thank you to our Kayla McKinnon for her wonderful support. In addition to our event you will find really insightful profiles from members of our Economics community, as well as references to useful resources the Economics Society can offer you. We hope you enjoy this second issue! Carla Valerio Pena Academic VP UW Economics Society

3 UWEcon/March, alumni KRISHNA PATEL I have had the opportunity to be a business to business sales representative to Moneris Solutions, selling merchant payment processing terminals doorto-door to small businesses in Toronto. This experience allowed me to gain skills in sales; it also showed me how much the 2008 recession had impacted the small business community in Toronto, which made me more interested in pursuing economics. The co-operative program also allowed me to take on the role of a technical writer at Sybase, where I created help guides for upcoming technologies at the time such as mobile banking. In my third co-op term I took on an eight month position at Toyota Canada replacing their full time resource as a National Contract Management Consultant. In this role I worked with the legal and procurement team to assess the risks before entering into agreements, as well as ensuring these risks were mitigated through negotiations with vendors. My last co-op placement was with Loblaw Companies Ltd, where I worked on the SAP project in change management to ensure end users were adequately prepared for the transition. As an organizational change analyst I developed a Human Resource Information System using Microsoft Access, SQL, and SAP which allowed the change management team to understand any gaps in training, security and communications with the end users. As a part of my graduate studies co-op program, I worked as an advisor at the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment, where I was offered a full time position as an Advisor in the Science, Services, and Technology branch. At this role I conducted market analysis on upcoming technologies such as 3D printing, and Mobile Payments, to understand the opportunities these technologies would bring to Ontario through an economic development lens. Currently I am a consultant in performance improvement at Ernst & Young s Advisory practice; here I assist clients by improving their processes and controls using analytics, technology and methodologies to help improve their revenue and cut costs. My career so far may appear to have very little economic related experiences, but my education has provided me with the credibility to excel in each of these roles, and have all held an economic component. I have also had many professors and managers who have mentored me along the way to help me be where I am today. I keep my passion for economics alive through tutoring university students in economics, and keeping current with journals, blogs and news within the industry. "I have been fortunate to be exposed to many different work experiences thanks to University of Waterloo s Co-op program. "

4 4 econ 20 WHAT'S featuring speakers from: QNC 2502 March 18 Public & Monetary Policy Econometrics March 19 Finance & Banking March 20 Entrepreneurship & Marketing

5 UWEcon/March, NEXT The event of the term is just around the corner! econ 2014 is the second annual offering of the conference by the Economics Society. The theme of this year is What's Next We will have faculty representing the main areas of economics within our department. The professors will share information regarding courses and opportunities to develop skills in these areas for interested students. Each professor is then join by experts in the field who will answer the question every student wants to know: what am I ever going to use this suff for?! They will tell us how they further developed their skils in their fields and whar career opportunities there are that students can take advantage of. Take a look at a sneak peak of the speakers and faculty who will be participating at the conference. Finally, of course, make sure you get your tickets on time! Tickets are available at: tinyurl.com/qhtwdnw 5

6 6 SNEAK PEAK from econ2014 Experts Muneeba Omar Economic Development Officer Federal Development Agency of Southern Ontario Bill Stone Senior Wealth Advisor ScotiaMcLeod Kevin Tuer Managing Director, Canadian Digital Media Network Communitech

7 UWEcon/March, 2014 Faculty Anindya Sen Economic Policy Pirapa Tharmaligam Finance & Banking Larry Smith Entrepreneurship & Marketing 7

8 8 JOHN BURBIDGE Faculty Feature June 2014 will be the fortieth anniversary of my first publication with Tom Asimakopulos who was my principal PhD supervisor at McGill. You can all read and my CV is public information. Inspection of it reveals that I have written on too wide a variety of topics with many co-authors over the past four decades. Economics teaches us about the advantages of monopoly power and researchers who focus on a particular area of economics and make themselves one of the world s experts in that area do much better than those, like me, who work on whatever happens to interest them year by year. You have given an old man an opportunity to talk and old men tell stories. Here is the story of a paper that will be published by the Canadian Journal of Economics (CJE) later this year. As an application of income and substitution effects second-year micro instructors will often use a two-period consumption diagram to show that an interest tax is inefficient relative to either a proportional earnings tax or a proportional consumption tax; for the same tax revenue raised it leads to lower utility. I have used numerical simulations to teach my courses for about thirty years. In a graduate class at McMaster in the late 1980s I used a numerical simulation of a two-period model to show the students something everyone knew --- an interest tax is inefficient relative to earnings or consumption taxes. With a leisure, as well as a consumption, choice in the model we discovered examples where an interest tax improves the efficiency of a wage tax or consumption tax. Trying to understand the role of interest taxation in life-cycle models led eventually to an article on distance functions by Angus Deaton in the 1979 Review of Economic Studies. Using Deaton s framework, the students and I published an article on optimal taxation in a life-cycle model in the 1992 CJE. Subsequently Besley and Jewitt (Journal of Public Economics 1995) showed that Deaton did not get the necessary and sufficient conditions for the efficiency of uniform commodity taxation quite right and I realized that there were mistakes in our 1992 article on taxation in a life-cycle model in the CJE. After 1995, new articles on interest taxation appeared in the Journal of Economic Theory and the American Economic Review but these papers also didn t quite capture the way interest taxation actually works. It is my hope that the paper coming out in the CJE later this year sets the record straight. A pdf of Using distance functions to understand interest taxation is on my web site. Section 2 of this paper is currently being used to torture Winter 2014 Econ 401 students with distance functions. The lead footnote thanks Simon Chen, a student in the Winter 2013 Econ 401 class, and now a graduate student at MIT. Simon found an error in the paper which has been corrected thank you Simon! written by Prof. John Burbidge for the Economics Society

9 UWEcon/March, 2014 undergrad SOPHIE COTE Why did you choose Economics? Because Eva Lau told me to. Jokes aside, I am very thankful she incited me too. I decided to do a Joint Honours from starting in Fine Arts, I started being involved with WPIRG doing social justice work while taking ECON 101 and 102. I started being interested in economic questions involving welfare and equity so that eventually led me to submit a plan modification to give me the tools to further explore those subjects. What area do you enjoy the most? I definitely like econometrics the most because it is a powerful tool informing public policies! What role do you see economics playing in your career after graduation? I want to get my MA to specialize in economics. I don t know what s next after that, but I would like to look at problems of intergenerational transfers. Looking at how parents saving patterns, education, income, or geographical location influence their children s life outcomes. Fun fact about you: Something quite funny happened to me in 2005 during an improv tournament. Here s the video: v=dcb0mpy_jow. Joint Honours ECONOMICS FINE ARTS STUDIO 9

10 ? 10 SOCIETY RESOURCES ECONSOC OFFICE Did you know EconSoc holds weekly office hours? You can find us at HH128 Come get to know the team, ask questions, or give us your comments/feedback! Find our regular office hours posted each week on our Facebook site. "

11 UWEcon/March, grad BEHNOUSH AMERY PhD Economics I was born and grown in Iran, a country with a young and educated labour force who mostly cannot find a proper job after graduation. This is why the topics of education and employment have always been at the top of my interests list in Economics and I have been mostly interested in the micro side of these topics in the labour market. I started to read and think about how education affects people s life and specifically how education increases individuals productivity and job mobility in their career path. Education can be a formal degree received by a worker before joining the job market or it can be a jobrelated training after finding a job. I have investigated the relationship between education, training and job promotions in my PhD thesis. I have also had a great opportunity to work on an interesting project for the public sector. I am currently involved in this project which is about the relationship between employment insurance and social assistance programs in Ontario. I would like to see how the employment insurance and welfare programs have been successful to end up with a proper job for people who lose their jobs and people in low income families. I also had a chance to teach a large Microeconomics class which provided me with the opportunity of transferring a part of my knowledge to others as well as dealing with students whom I love. I have always loved to be a student, and learning has always been my favorite hobby. Learning music and philosophy are all my entertainments when I am not learning Economics. The advantage of our department is that it is an applied department that supports PhD students to gain work experience inside and outside the university. Both my teaching and research experience will open various options for my future career as a PhD graduate and I like all the careers which engage me in either or both jobs. "Our department supports PhD students to gain work experience inside and outside the university..

12 Let us hear from you! ipsum. Blog: of marginal benefit Facebook group: Economics Google+: UW Economics Society