University of Rochester Economics Department
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The Rochester Department of Economics is an academic department of the University of Rochester, in Rochester, New York.
History
The Rochester Department of Economics was established in 1957 when Lionel W. McKenzie was appointed as the first chairman. McKenzie was chosen on the recommendation of Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow who at the time were professors at MIT. Two of the first hires under McKenzie's chairmanship were Stanley Engerman and Ronald W. Jones, who remain affiliated with Rochester as Professors Emeriti. In 1962 the department awarded its first two Ph.D. degrees to Akira Takayama and Emmanuel Drandakis. Takayama would later go on to several faculty positions in the U.S. and Japan, authoring a widely used textbook in mathematical economics. Drandakis eventually came to head Athens University of Economics and Business.
The association of Rochester economics with Japan was already well established in the department's early years by a series of students who completed the Ph.D. program, including Takayama. Many of these students studied under Jones and McKenzie. This relationship between Rochester and Japan was formalized in 1995 when McKenzie was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by Emperor Akihito for his tutelage of Japanese economists.
Among other early hires were Rudolph G. Penner, who later became head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Robert W. Fogel, who was hired on the recommendation of Simon Kuznets. Before moving to the University of Chicago, it was at the University of Rochester that Fogel conducted his research on the canal system in the United States in the period of railroad building, for which he later received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Around this time Fogel and recently hired Professor Stanley Engerman began a research program on the economics of slavery that would culminate in their provocative book Time on the Cross (1974), in which they argued that antebellum slavery was economically efficient.
In more recent years, the department has solidified its historical strengths in economic theory and macroeconomics. The department appears within the top 15 in many rankings that are based on the quantity of research published in top academic journals. Rochester economics continues to have a prominent role in the field due, in part, to its affiliation with the Journal of Monetary Economics and its co-sponsorship of the Carnegie-Rochester Series on Public Policy with Carnegie Mellon University. The Carnegie-Rochester Series consists of a conference held at Carnegie Mellon in November and a conference held at Rochester each April.
Each year the department sponsors several guest lecture series, including the Gilbert Lecture Series (1957 —Present) and the McKenzie Lecture Series (1986 — Present). Fifteen Gilbert Lecturers and thirteen McKenzie Lecturers subsequently received the Nobel Prize in Economics.
People
Prominent Current Faculty
- Mark Bils
- Yongsung Chang
- John Duggan
- Stanley Engerman
- Srihari Govindan
- Ronald W. Jones
- Narayana Kocherlakota
- Steven Landsburg
- William Thomson
Prominent Former Faculty
- S. Rao Aiyagari
- Jeffrey Scot Banks
- Robert Barro
- Larry G. Epstein
- Robert Fogel
- Eric Hanushek
- Hugo Hopenhayn
- Robert King
- Lionel W. McKenzie
- Walter Oi
- Werner Ploberger
- Paul Romer
- Sherwin Rosen
- Alan Stockman
Notable Graduates
- Harold Cole
- Jerry Green
- Zvi Hercowitz
- Per Krusell
- Richard McKelvey
- Lee Ohanian
- Alain Paquet
- Sergio Rebelo
- José Scheinkman
- Andrzej (Andy) Skrzypacz
- Tayfun Sonmez
- Richard Thaler